Editing Digital media (section)

==="As We May Think"===
While digital media did not come into common use until the late 20th century, the ''conceptual'' foundation of digital media is traced to the work of scientist and engineer [[Vannevar Bush]] and his celebrated essay "[[As We May Think]]", published in ''[[The Atlantic Monthly]]'' in 1945.<ref name=symposium>{{cite news|last=Simpson|first=Rosemary|title=50 years after "As We May Think": the Brown/MIT Vannevar Bush symposium|url=http://cs.brown.edu/~rms/50YearsAfter.pdf|access-date=29 March 2014|newspaper=Interactions|date=March 1996|author2=Allen Renear|author3=Elli Mylonas|author4=Andries van Dam|pages=47–67|archive-date=14 May 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140514102637/http://cs.brown.edu/~rms/50YearsAfter.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> Bush envisioned a system of devices that could be used to help scientists, doctors, and historians, among others, to store, analyze and communicate information.<ref name=symposium /> Calling this then-imaginary device a "[[memex]]", Bush wrote:
<blockquote>The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically, he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First, he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, and leaves it projected. Next, in history, he finds another pertinent item and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.<ref name=AWMT>{{cite news|last=Bush|first=Vannevar|title=As We May Think|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/?single_page=true|access-date=29 March 2014|newspaper=The Atlantic Monthly|date=1 July 1945|archive-date=29 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140329022429/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/?single_page=true|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>
Bush hoped that the creation of this memex would be the work of scientists after World War II.<ref name=AWMT /> Though the essay predated digital computers by several years, "As We May Think" anticipated the potential social and intellectual benefits of digital media and provided the conceptual framework for [[digital scholarship]], the [[World Wide Web]], [[wiki]]s and even [[social media]].<ref name=symposium /><ref>{{cite web|last=Mynatt|first=Elizabeth|title=As we may think: the legacy of computing research and the power of human cognition|url=http://www.cra.org/ccc/component/content/article/309-as-we-may-think-the-legacy-of-computing-research-and-the-power-of-human-cognition|publisher=Computing Research Association|access-date=30 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140407053914/http://www.cra.org/ccc/component/content/article/309-as-we-may-think-the-legacy-of-computing-research-and-the-power-of-human-cognition|archive-date=7 April 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> It was recognized as a significant work even at the time of its publication.<ref name=AWMT />