Convergence

It is organised in four sections. The first, 'Debates', is a series of short, issue-raising polemics. This seems like a good idea - provocative statements on current issues - but they turn out to be disappointingly no more than brief statements of personal belief, yielding few insights.

The next section is 'Articles', a series of refereed essays which present critical evaluations of specific case studies. These more substantial pieces include one on children's responses to interactive Television. This is something of a misleading term, since it involves nothing more than switching between four versions of the same programme.

Another on interactive CD-ROM purports to inspect the potential of this new medium, but it slithers into a Cultural Studies type encomium of Australian pop groups - although the latter part of the article does deal with the interesting notion of CD-ROM as a 'transitional medium' which will possibly be replaced by Internet on-line sources within the next five to ten years.

The highlight of the collection is an account by Brent MacGregor of television news gathering using the latest satellite technology. The advantages of speed and 'authenticity' are measured against the dangers of what he calls 'palm tree journalism' - reporters filing hourly bulletins but never leaving the hotel.

An enthusiastic account of the MediaMOO project fails to put forward a case that these are much more than wordplay in Cyberspace. MOOs are an Object Oriented version of MUDs - Multiple User Dungeons - and their origin in the world of computer games doesn't seem to have been shaken off yet.

A 'Reports' section features accounts of conferences in Oslo and Stockholm in 1994 [more on MUDs and MOOs, plus some virtual reality] and 'The Future of the Book' in San Marino. These might have profited from being shorter and closer to factual reportage, but the issues raised are completely apposite to the journal's purpose.

Finally, there is a good 'Reviews' section covering books, a Web site art exhibition, and a cable communications conference. This mixture is refreshing and an encouraging sign of the editors' catholic intentions.

On the whole then, more good points than bad. However, the outstanding problem with journals like this is their price. On the assumption that the contributors are not paid [go on - tell me I'm wrong] there seems no sensible reason why individual readers should pay nine, and libraries twenty UK pounds for a mere 144 wide-margin pages. Now that many journals are available free of charge in electronic form, commercially dubious ventures of this type seem to be signing their own death warrants.