What is a Multimedia Author?

What is a multimedia author?
What are your thoughts at this point?
Write your own theory under the “influence” (a la Lethem) of Foucault and/or Barthes.

"It is language that speaks, not the author"
"The explanation of the work is always sought in the man who has produced it"
"The absent author: pre-exists their work, time/age is not a factor, what do we believe about the author... modern writer is: born simultaneously with his texts, exists with his text."
"It's source is not known, but texts are perfectly read because writing best correlates to reading"

These excerpts pulled frm Barthes "Death of an Author" were of best interest to me. When talking about a multimedia author I have always thought of someone who participates in some way in writing taking place on the internet. There are a lot of broad areas you can take multimedia authorship, EXA: collaborative, anonymous, published, personal, etc... In relation to my project, I'd say authorship in media is loosely used, and not always important to determine the meanings of the text. For example, the idea of an 'absent author' would be those people who give their input to websites like ..FML.com, textsfromlastnight.com, urbandictionary.com... These "authors" are completely anonymous, the only thing you know about them is what you read that they post/write. This is the idea of an absent author, but also a modern writer. Someone who does not exist in every aspect of the text, but does not pre-exist the text.

I like the saying "it is the language that speaks, not the author". This is true in many aspects of writing, because you can have no prior knowledge of an author but completely understand the meaning of their texts, its the language and the words that make the work come to life. After reading this article I feel like I have a better understanding of importance of an author, or lack thereof. It rose questions about when is it important to know the background of an author? Is the authors POV necessary to understand the text? Does the absence of an author (anonymity) effect the way text is interpreted?

My theory on authorship in multimedia aspects is heavily influenced the idea of how texts can still be perfectly read or interpreted despite an absent author. I think a good claim to make on authorship after reading these articles is that the voice of the author is never unknown even if the author is. You can interpret writing effectively despite knowing why the writing exists in the first place. Multimedia authors may not always be published or even named, however, the idea of an author will always become apparent upon reading their work.