The possible delay between how interdiscipliarity is generally endorsed, and how interdisciplinarity and perhaps practice-based method in particular may be received, is not only a matter of how practice-based method is not accommodated institusionally (e.g. flexible moduls, technical and economic support) but a matter of how practice-based studies (like this thesis) are read. Multiple lines of inquiry and notions of practice-based discovery may be read as multiple focal points or lack of focal point, respectively. The point here is that the parameters of both higher digital media-education and -research could be broadened to embrace other forms of understanding and engagement that are more process oriented: That is, engagement that are less based and built around a static foundation like set objects of inquiery (e.g. the movie-adaptation of Hunger, the appearance of low-angle shots of men in tabloids in a particular period of time) or set, or at least settled, research questions to answer. More process oriented engagement are present in mentioned responses to studies of digital media (Liestøl et al. 2003) in terms of innovation, and in studies of learning (Engeström 2001) in terms of how learning occur through activity in a context and a community (e.g. Engeström et al.1998).

Broadened parameters of research towards more prosess oriented engagements is not only present in art and design research, but pressing. Here, practice-based method and prosess oriented engagements, are emphasised e.g. in terms of “engagement with possibility” marked by “discovery” (Marshall & Newton 2000) [84. notions of discovery in the modern academy, Ernest Boyer]. Situated both within and outside the field of digital media studies , these refereces represents an overarching reflexive discussion on method, that is on research as cultural practice, or "praxis" (e.g. Wolmark 2001, discussing research as cultural practice in art and design research) .

As cultural practice, all research and learning is contingent. What we discover depends on where we stand, i.e. how we look at a phenomena, in what context, with which resources, and for what aim. This inescapable situatedness may lead to “knowing about oneself more than anything else” according to the editors of Digital Media Revisisted (Liestøl et al. 2003:10). Such reflexive thinking on ones own situatedness arise when we are confronted with mehodological dilemmas that compel us to rethink learning and research as cultural practices. Much based on the foregoing chapters, I will suggest that such reflexiveness within the field of digital media studies, may arise from a matrix of technological, pragmatic, expressive and what might be termed ideological matters or dilemmas.

technological matters: Reflexive rethinking of method may arise out of technological matters of digital media studies as the complexity of new, increasingly evolving, and in many ways both converging and diverging digital media makes problematic the conventional distinction between the medium of theory and the media of practice, and therby the assumption that diciplinary interpretation can grasp digital media.

pragmatic matters: Reflexive rethinking of method may be set off by more pragmatic matters of digital media studies as the academic written formats and interpretive methods of humanities may be said to resist or oppose experimental, process oriented practice-based experience and knowledge. This is a dilemma process oriented digital media studies shares with process oriented artistic research. Like artistic research, process oriented digital media studies may be distinguished from critical analysis and scientific research on the one side and technological research on the other as process oriented studies are not primarily “ means of reflection and theory formation nor of problem-solving and product development, but is itself a form of reflection” (Brouwer et al. 2005:7).

expressive matters: Reflexive rethinking of method may arise out of expressive matters of digital media studies as we are situated in a reflexive way of communicating or expressiveness that penetrates any cultural activity whether that is performing an art piece or performing a media thesis. The possible shift of expressive emphasis that sorrunds, in my view, any contemporary expressive practice, may be described in Johannes Birringers terms addressing the expressive shifts of art “from the object of representation to the emergent situation, the performative interplay, and the materialization of technology, itself” (Birringer 2004).

ideological matters: Finaly, reflexive rethinking of method may arise from what I have termed ideological matters of digital media, addressing the persistent post-structural orientation or turn in humanities overlaying the whole reflexive discussion on method - that is, on research as cultural practice. If our distinctions, our view of reality and truth, are constructed, as put forward by post-structuralism (e.g. Belsey 2002), this causes dilemmas of both representation and legitimation for the humanities ( Denzin & Lincoln 2000). How can the world around us be captured in a text? How can the world around us be captured in a text by theorists and researchers, if the distinctions we make are not necessarily given by the world around us, but are instead produced by the symbolizing system we learn and reproduce? I will not enter a discussion of post-structuralism and relativism here, given the constraints of space. What I think is important to emphasise however, is that the post-structural orientation or turn in humanities, in its wake, makes us reflexive and therby sensitive to situatedness - makes us sensitive to our methods, means of communication and the overall cultural practice of performing (digital media) studies. As has been the case in this study.

At the outset of my thesis I introduced practice-based method broadly as a learning- and research design with three, partly overlapping features of practice, triangulation of research methods and a double structure of practice and reflection. The following schematized distinctions form a refined and more distinct understanding of practice-based method set in the context of digital media studies.

Refined account of the practice-based method of digital media studies
Practice-based method is interdisciplinary, but at several levels, blending artifacts, blending methods, blending aims or object of the activity.Practice-based method is process oriented. Practice-based meaning making is characterized by discovery and may be driven by contradictory artifacts, methods and aims set in a collaborative context of creative practice. Practice based method is contingent and the knowledge gained situated. The contingency of practice-based method does not make it a less valid approach to digital media. On the contrary, the contingency of practice-based method may be a necessity in order to get at the diverging features of digital media application and expression.

Because practice based method is interdiciplinary, contingent, process-oriented and marked by discovery, it may be reflexive and itself a form of reflection. This reflection may include rethinking research communication and re-/presentation, making practice-based method into a much hybrid design of experimental media practice, theoretical reflection on practice and on-line research communication.