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, or 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,
and even with a laptop or 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
remains 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, and 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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