The problems of information overload from the growth of scholarly literature, and the need to use information technology to manage them, were identified by major writers and scientists over 50 years ago. Yet, the main form of scholarly communication, the journal, is still circulated in paper form as it has been for over 300 years. The economic arguments for using computer and communication technologytoovercome these problems through a new form of scientific communication, the electronic or digital journal, were vigorously presented in the 1970s. Experimental trials of digital journals with the technologies of the 1970s and 1980s have not been successful. In the 1990s, the continuing value of current journal systems is again being questioned in terms of soaring library costs, the burden of the current refereeing system, and the diminishing returns of journal publication brought about by information overload. This article presents a fundamental examination of the prerequisites for the introduction of digital journals, at one level in terms of the role of journals in the social and economic processes of human knowledge production, and at another in terms of the state of the art in the relevant technologies. Models of the processes underlying the growth of knowledge in the literature on the philosophy, history, and psychology of science are first used to analyze the structure and role of the social infrastructure of journals, including the editorial and refereeing systems and the role of commercial publishers and libraries. The motivation for digital journals and past experience is surveyed, then the learning curves, and current costs and performances of the enabling hardware, software, communications, and interface technologies. Examples of the current impact of computer and communications technology on scholarly discourse are given to enable probable changes to be predicted in the structure of journals when they are transferred to digital form. Finally, the social and technological analyses are used to outline some architectures for a first generation of digital journals emulating the current medium, and for the evolution of later generations diverging in characteristics to take advantage of the new medium.