Agitprop, Part 4a
“Multi-media”
Electronic
publishing, photos, sound and video
The previous item was to
understand at a simple level, and then at a broad policy level, how the
Internet, as we call it, meaning the World Wide Web, has been developing in
recent years.
In this item we can consider and
discuss the growth of multi-media “ICT”, where ICT stands for Information and
Communication Technology.
Cameras are digital these
days. They record images in the form of files that are computer files and can
be saved in computers and opened in computer programmes for manipulation,
cropping, and “photo-shopping”.
Sound is recorded in digital
files, and so is video.
All this means that text,
sound, pictures and moving pictures can all be handled, edited, and combined
using an ordinary computer, a laptop or even with a tablet.
Integrated software that can
do all of these tasks is available. The Adobe “Creative Suite” is one of them.
The potential is great and
the means are available. What must be added is the human factor.
The Human Factor, Politics and Monopoly
The history of computing, or
(ICT) is one of mass creativity, periodically commodified, and then quickly
monopolised. This is what happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when
there was huge innovation led by unpaid “amateurs” and by small companies, until
it was nearly all captured by the twin and mutually-supporting monopolies of
IBM and Microsoft. This cycle has repeated itself many times. It provides a
good example of how capitalism evolves through one technology and towards the
next, and how one monopoly can give way to another in the process.
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