3 DECEMBER 2005 Features The current historical moment is marked by the gradual transition from a print culture to a digital new media culture, and this shift carries material effects for how education research contexts are perceived and represented. This discussion uses the concept of ma- teriality to demonstrate how the conceptualization of inquiry through digital representations can be theorized through the histories and dis- courses of multiple media, computer technologies, research method- ologies, epistemological positions, new literacies, and current social and cultural contexts to highlight emerging concerns in education re- search. Paying attention to the design of materiality encourages schol- ars to reflect on how inscription technologies influence the ways in which research is conducted and communicated. A lthough educational inquiry is an evolving practice in which questions, theories, and methods have been un- dergoing accelerated diversification over the past three decades (Donmoyer, 1996; Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Lather, 2000; Phillips & Burbules, 2000), the textual structures in which research results are typically communicated and represented in academic journals in education have changed little despite the growth of, and possibilities of, inquiry and dissemination by elec- tronic authoring and publishing (Pea, 1999; Robinson, 2004; Walker, 2004). The slow processes of this textual transition are explained in the work of scholars who observe that the adoption of media innovations are modeled after preceding and co-existing technologies (Bolter & Grusin, 1999; McLuhan, 1964). As aca- demic publishing in education gradually changes from a print cul- ture to a digital new media culture, it is important to continue to theorize, study, and historicize emerging relationships between new media and academic inquiry in order to ensure the ability of education research to respond to changing social, pedagogical, technological, learning, and cultural contexts. The Materiality of Representation In what follows, I use the concept of materiality to demonstrate how the conceptualization of inquiry through digital representa- tions can be theorized through the histories and discourses of mul- tiple media, computer technologies, research methodologies, epistemological positions, new literacies, and current social and Designing New Media Education Research: The Materiality of Data, Representation, and Dissemination by Rick Voithofer cultural contexts to highlight emerging concerns in education re- search. The convergence of these histories and discourses through materiality offers one way to advance the discussion of how ed- ucation research can maintain relevance within the context of changing pressures on education to address the multiple litera- cies (e.g., computer, media, communication, information, social, visual) that emerge as a result of the growing diffusion of new media (Kress, 2003; Lankshear & Knobel, 2003; New London Group, 1996). Research can be considered a practice of the representation of questions, theories, methods, data, analyses, and interpretations, during which inclusions and exclusions occur as the narrative of inquiry is constructed and communicated. While the post- modern critique of representational neutrality, coupled with dis- cussions about the breakdown of the distinction between real-world and virtual experiences through electronic communication and simulations, have made it difficult to discuss representation with- out close and situated considerations of producer and reader positionality, addressing the materiality of representation can advance the discussion of the conceptualization and communica- tion of research. Hayles (2002) introduces the concept of “material metaphors” to describe the interaction between words and physical artifacts, particularly “inscription technologies”—devices that “initiate ma- terial changes that can be read as marks” (Hayles, 2002, p. 24), such as books, computer screens, and videos. Paying attention to materiality encourages scholars to reflect on how inscription tech- nologies influence the conceptualization and communication of research. As Denzin (2002) observes, “Our interpretive practices have a material effect on the world; there is a materiality to the text.... We change the world by changing the way we make it vis- ible” (p. 483). The shift to a new media culture reshapes how re- search is conceived and represented, much like the move from an oral to a print culture through writing-restructured consciousness (Ong, 2002). According to Hayles, a text’s instantiation through inscription technologies influences readings in ways that cannot be separated from the meanings of its semiotic elements, including vi- sual interface(s), words, images, video, and sound. She notes that interacting with a text’s materiality is influenced by the interplay between the text, author, and reader (Gitelman, 2003). The con- sequence of this interplay is that a text’s materiality cannot be de- termined in advance. Because each text exists in its own type of materiality, Hayles stresses the need for media-specific analysis Educational Researcher, Vol. 34, No. 9, pp. 3–14