FOURTH REPORT
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee has agreed
to the following Report:
THE MULTI-MEDIA REVOLUTION
I. INTRODUCTION
1. We are living through a global revolution which
links almost instantaneously any place in the planet with any
other place. It brings together every way in which human beings
have previously communicated with each other—words, pictures,
sound, vision, drama, education, television, cinema, computers.
It is already affecting not only how we are entertained but how
we shop, how we transact financial dealings, how we pay tax and
receive benefit, how we teach, how we learn. It can change our
cities. It can change our democracy. There seems to be almost
no limit to it.
2. It can be used for ill as well as for good, but
its potential for good is extraordinary. It can empower the citizen
against authority.
3. We believe that, while technology drives this
revolution, government can harness the revolution to increase
its potential for good. Our recommendations in this Report are
aimed at pointing government towards action that will maximise
that potential.
4. Television has been possibly the most important
influence on our lives in the second half of the Twentieth Century
as a source of entertainment and information. It is universally
available, simple to use. It has become part of the furniture.
5. The computer and its networks now make available
information of unparalleled scope and volume. The development
of the computer has been far faster—exponentially faster—than
the development of television. At present the computer is far
less simple to use than television and, although ownership of
computers is growing, it is far from universal.
6. Television and the computer have been different
in nature, television-viewing a broadly passive activity, computer
use far more active. Changes in technology are now bringing television
and computers together into a merged technology. The converging
of these two technologies is no futuristic concept. It is just
around the corner. We must use it rather than let it use us.
7. For this inquiry, we held ten evidence sessions
from late January to the end of March, during which oral evidence
was taken from thirty sets of witnesses.[1]
We also received written evidence of great range and quality,
all of which is printed with this Report.[2]
We undertook three visits within the United Kingdom to see demonstrations
of technological developments. From 8 to 12 March we visited Seattle,
San Francisco and Los Angeles. On 24 March we held discussions
in Brussels with Commissioner Marcelino Oreja and senior officials
of the European Commission.[3]
We are most grateful to all those who assisted us in the course
of our inquiry, and in particular to those who made our visit
to the West Coast of the USA so informative.
8. Some of this Report is concerned with technological
developments. We endeavour to explain the main concepts and technologies
in the course of the Report, but a glossary of technical terms
is also annexed to the Report.[4]
We are conscious that not all of the developments which appear
compelling in the laboratory will necessarily reach the mass market.
It is not our main purpose to provide a technical assessment of
particular developments or their market prospects. We are concerned
with the shared characteristics of many of these technologies
and the likely implications of those characteristics. Public
policy must not be transfixed by technology, but it must be informed
by it and might be transformed by it.
1 See Annex 3 for a list of organisations and individuals
who gave evidence and pp lxv-lxvii for a full list of witnesses. Back
2 See
pp lxviii-lxxi for a list of the organisations and individuals
who submitted written evidence. Back
3 See
Annex 4 for a list of the various presentations, demonstrations
and discussions during all of these visits. Back
4 See
Annex 1. Back
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