Purpose: This paper aims to explore the potential uses of CD-ROMs in multicultural education through an analysis of the development of a digital archive of political posters relating to the Northern Irish conflict. Design/methodology/approach: The author draws on literature on the relationship between new media platforms and the construction of knowledge to make some observations about the way in which different forms of media can enable us to think in different ways. Findings: As a pedagogical tool, CD-ROMs strike a good balance between the limitations of the codex book and the anarchic nature of the world wide web. Research limitations/implications: This paper illustrates the importance of distinguishing between different forms of new media. Originality/value: Most analyses of digitisation tend to conflate CD-ROMs and the world wide web. This paper argues that a clear distinction should be made between the two media platforms, the value of which is to illustrate the extent to which the former avoids some of the weaknesses that abound in the latter. (Contains 3 notes.)