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Funder: Targeted Socio-Economic Research programme
Contract 4141 PL 951003
May 1996 - January 1999
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Funder: Targeted Socio-Economic Research programme
Contract 4141 PL 951003
May 1996 - January 1999
SLIM was a major EC supported project involving 8 national
research centres based in the UK, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, Belgium,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany.
SLIM investigated the process of innovation in multimedia : the
convergence of information, communication and broadcasting
technologies,highlighting the role of social learning, the widely
dispersed interactions between producers, intermediate and final
users and policy-makers which are critical to the future evolution
and success of multimedia.
(all above are PDF files)
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This study showed that the eventual uses and utility of multimedia products are often far removed from supplier presumptions. Social learning is therefore crucial to how generic Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capabilities are applied and used in particular settings. In creating new multimedia products and services, diverse players are forced to collaborate: suppliers of ICTs and complementary products, media specialists and users. Certain actors (intermediaries) play a key role in maintaining such collaboration and knowledge flows. The importance of social learning is reflected in the proliferation of multimedia experiments: pilots, feasibility studies and trials, which provide a forum for resolving the uncertainties and differences surrounding the development of new multimedia products. Multimedia projects remain inherently experimental. However the importance of this innovative effort, and the knowledge it throws up, has often been overlooked. The study highlighted the various options for organising social learning, from user-centred design, to evolutionary models in which technical and market development go hand in hand, and laissez-faire approaches in which users configure standard commodified technical components to their particular purposes.
Multimedia is thus an 'unfinished' technology, which evolves, and
acquires its meanings in its implementation and use (innofusion).
Non-specialist 'users' play an active role in fitting these offerings
to their purposes, making them useful and imparting significance
(domestication).
The key policy challenge posed by the SLIM study surrounds the
need for a 'double shift' in the focus of technology policy from
Research and Technological Development of ICTs, towards:
· The appropriation activities (innofusion and domestication) of
intermediate and final users,
· The development and appropriation of cultural and information
content.
Public support for the appropriation of multimedia should include
provision for a creative effort in implementing and using
technologies, and for the dissemination of appropriation experiences
to other appropriators and to future technology supply.
Decision-makers, in seeking to demonstrate the wider exploitation of
public-funded projects, tend to look towards the development of novel
technological artefacts. This is unhelpful. First this promise of
wider commercial exploitation is rarely fulfilled (especially in the
short term). Second it may discourage experimentation around usage.
Finally, it may divert attention from the important non-material
outcomes of a multimedia experiment: knowledge of potential users and
markets; developing relationships with collaborators.
The social learning perspective draws attention to the
transferability of results and how best to utilise the experiences
gained in experiments. The lessons learnt may be contingent and
difficult to communicate and generalise. It may not be helpful to
search for best practice exemplars: attribution of success or failure
is often contested and uninformative; there are many valuable lessons
in projects formally defined as 'failures'. Knowledge about change
processes provides a more reliable basis for transferability than
correlations between specific factors and outcomes. A key question
however concerns whether the players involved in an experiment are
motivated to apply the experience gained more broadly. Public support
provides crucial resources - but needs to be carefully configured to
avoid unhelpful outcomes (e.g. where funding favours launching new
projects over exploiting existing products and building markets).
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To order copies of the final report, please email Mrs B. Silander
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