MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES: PROMISE OR THREAT?

摘要

Technology, like wealth, makes the best of servants and the worst of masters, a force which can contribute to the upliftment or downfall of humanity, a Pandora's box equally full of dreams and nightmares. A powerful example is multimedia, involving the convergence of various media and communication technologies, the sharing of network resources, and the emergence of new hybrid services like datacasting and teleconferencing. An audio-visual presentation with slides, commentary and music is multimedia; so is a CD-driven computer system with sound effects and moving graphics. And tomorrow's brave new world of virtual reality represents multimedia at an extremely compelling level.Multimedia plays an important role in communicating new ideas, as anyone in advertizing can attest. When a message is received through more than one medium, it is reinforced and retained. Thus, a successful campaign to introduce a new product might utilize print (magazines, newspapers, billboards, product packaging), radio and other aural media, moving visual images (television, motion pictures) and "live" endorsements, whether they enter the senses via a chat with a neighbor or the testimony of some prominent person on TV.Multimedia is also a Pandora's box, filled to the brim with brave new world technology capable of linking people, machines and ideas - for better...and for worse. The paper to follow will commence with a general review of multimedia's rapidly converging technologies, highlight its promise and potential, then visit the down side of this most impactful of recent developments.