This year, we are presenting a book that collects 24 voices speaking about the field of multimedia. Specifically on the teaching given in this discipline, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the completion of the first course of the “Bachelor’s Degree in Multimedia” at the UOC, which has been driven by the university rector Gabriel Ferraté and led by professor Ferran Giménez.
In 25 years, we have accumulated experience far beyond purely teaching. Establishing a new area of knowledge within a university context, where labels are already assumed, has been a challenge that has yielded valuable learning, key to building the confidence necessary to take on new challenges today.
Today, the university’s mission is to bring knowledge to people. This knowledge can be aimed at either professional or personal development. In the first case (which is most common nowadays), reality determines the knowledge needs (or training needs) required to address it. These needs are gathered by the academic world and delivered through degrees or courses. If the university seeks the guarantee of the State, it defines them as official; if not, it presents them as its own. Regarding the field of study covered by the book, the knowledge area starts with its own degree called “Bachelor’s Degree in Multimedia”, and today it is involved in three official degrees, three university master’s programmes, and several PhD lines.
Designing training in a new environment involves facing challenges such as: explaining a knowledge area with unknown labels (which society may not recognize), promoting a faculty without research in the field (since it is new), and integrating it into the university framework; as well as adapting the new needs to the university’s internal procedures. These challenges demand sacrifice, persistence, and faith; qualities that the 24 voices of the book possess, and which make the university courses, the book, and this article possible.
Although the book contains content specific to the area, I want to emphasize that among its 24 voices you will not find two equal. Each has a distinct tone, style, gaze, and perspective, but all share a common feeling and vision. It is necessary to read all of them to understand what multimedia is, just like it is necessary to view a mountain from every side to fully grasp it. In fact, and with this I am making a spoiler, multimedia has been with us for much more than 25 years. It is like a large Chinese vase that broke into a thousand pieces. Everyone had and defended their piece, but they all fit together to form the original vase; everyone spoke differently, but they fundamentally said the same thing. Each point often needs to be understood separately, then reattached in harmony; the critical point is not to be stuck before the parts are joined. Figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and even some predecessors demonstrated that interdisciplinarity is as intrinsic to human beings as reality. Multimedia is another example that reminds us that there are things which, without interdisciplinarity, lack sense to exist.
The book explores various facets stemming from the interdisciplinary nature of multimedia and, in fact, encourages reflection on current challenges in a similar vein. An example of this is the book’s presentation session, which will be held on 11 March at the UOC headquarters in Barcelona.
We face significant challenges ahead, including the rise of generative AI tools today. Incorporating them, organizing their use, and making them understandable for society is, in my view, the most important mission the university has now. Having teams like those that have enabled multimedia to thrive within the UOC is a guarantee of success.
Recommended citation: MELENCHÓN MALDONADO, Javier. Multimedia: an interdisciplinary academic node. Mosaic [online], February 2025, no. 206. ISSN: 1696-3296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7238/m.n206.2518
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