ABSTRACT
What follows is perhaps best understood as a reflection on the scholarly use of interactive media/multimedia inspired by the BBC’s recent series Walking with Beasts (BBC 2002). However, it is important to say at the outset that, while much of what follows might appear to be critical of these programmes, that is not the intention. It would be entirely inappropriate to criticise the programme makers for not doing things they never intended to do. Rather they are to be praised for the steps that they have taken in what is potentially a very interesting area of development for academic discourse. The question is not, so to speak, ‘Why is this programme not scholarly?’. Rather it is, ‘What can scholars learn from such a programme about which models may be most appropriate for the conduct of academic discourse in an emerging, highly mediated culture of ubiquitous, multimedia computing, where the advantages of both the internet and broadcast television have become fully integrated?’
