Multimedia is raising many issues that governments, companies and individuals want to understand. What will be the future impact of multimedia technology? When will certain products take off, and in what markets? When and how will the technology challenge existing markets and social institutions? What systems will prove to be the most popular? What industrial policy should be implemented to ensure regional competitiveness and maximum social benefit? When do alliances with competitors and producers of complementary products and services make sense in emerging markets?
A multi-disciplinary team at Edinburgh University, in collaboration with industrial partners, CompART GmbH/Brameur Ltd and the Athens Technology Centre have submitted a European Commission DGXII sponsored study entitled:`Forecasting the application of Multimedia and its environment to 2010 and beyond.' under the Science and Technology Policy Orientation Initiative. This study uses regional and sectorial case studies to provide a multi-disciplinary analysis of the possible co-evolution the economy and society and multimedia technologies over the next 15-20 years.
Summary of Edinburgh FAME reports
Full texts of FAME studies from Edinburgh Information on the FAME project Details of the Research Team Summary of FAME work to date Resource pages on multimedia policy Details of the Research Institutes An overview of Multimedia Other research at Edinburgh
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Multimedia highlights the technical and industrial and geographic convergence based on developments in information and communications technology which has become the centre of economic, political and cultural attention in the past few years. Multimedia technologies, and the promise of those technologies are having a profound effect on the organisation of industry, as we see many telecommunications, computer and media companies moving into each other's markets and adopting each other's technology. Multimedia is also expected to have major influences on individual psychology, conceptual definitions of economic and cultural goods, and political and social relations. Opposing visions of cyber-democracy and the Orwellian state are again coming to the fore as the technologies to make these possible finally seen to have been invented and are starting to be implemented.
Although there is much hype and speculation around the ideas of multimedia, as companies and governments attempt to build markets coordinate development, the last 3 years has seen a considerable development in the market for products that have some of the new multimedia functions, such as on-line services, CD-ROM and multimedia PCs. There has been considerable investment in R&D, infrastructure and alliance building by companies setting their strategies from a 'vision' of multimedia. Governments too, recognise that the development of multimedia has many important social and economic aspects that demand active involvement in support and control.
The FAME project is sponsored by the European Commission DG XII, under the Science and Technology Research Policy Initiative. The study will forecast the technical developments intrinsic to multimedia, then go on to assess the impacts of these across a broad range of social, economic and political fields:
The central aims of the FAME projects as are identify :
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The study covers a broad range of issues stemming from technological developments, including :
These aspects are not studied in isolation as the subject matter is recognised to require considerable cross-discipline exchange. The researchers, with expertise in the different disciplines are collaborating to integrate their work through common methodologies and exchange of findings. In addition, to reenforce the policy driven nature of the study, a common theme runs through these studies : ' Citizens and Institutions : Home, Work and the Community'
One major component of the consortium's approach is to carry out comparative case studies involving policy making at all levels. These will examine short-term strategies to develop and use multimedia technologies for regional advantage, and also to longer-term `visions' of multimedia futures and policies that reflect and anticipate these visions. Industrial and public policy are to be compared at supranational and regional levels. In addition specific sectors are being targeted for in depth analysis, some of which are already being targeted by union R&D programmes. The programmes of Framework IV and the outlook for Frameworks V and VI will be considered in this context.
| Sectors to be studied | Regional Policy to be studied: |
|---|---|
| Education | Scotland |
| Shopping, including Retail Banking | North Greece |
| Entertainment | Berlin Area |
| Museums and Libraries |
and Japan Compared |
The industrial partners in the FAME consortium, will be identifying and forecasting the development of key technologies and of multimedia systems. These include : technologies of human computer interface; information technologies of data management, retrieval, data compression and encryption; physical enabling technologies of storage, acquisition, data processing , data exchange, portability and miniaturisation; and production technologies such as authoring tools, and increasingly important multimedia `process' engineering.
The development and diffusion of these technologies will be related to the socio-psychological aspects of multimedia, including usability, affordability and availability. Particular emphasis will be put on the development or emergence of standards.
During the FAME project life time we should be able to identify specific technology projects for support to enable market roll out in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
The economic issues, `growth', employment, competitiveness and so on, related to the evolution of multimedia technologies will be examined by focusing on the `impact' of these technologies on `core', `affiliated', and `user' sectors, with most emphasis on users and the role of multimedia as an enabling technology for other activities. Central to the study will be the difficulty of assessing the innumerable technologies and market opportunities, and how they will evolve and influence each other.
The `Productivity Paradox' - whereby investments by organisations in IT applications were not accompanied by concomitant increases in productivity or efficiency, is the basis for this study theme. Multimedia offers the possibility of overcoming constraints of earlier technology given it's greater flexibility. However this flexibility may only be relevant for certain functions of an organisation, and may have negative impacts on functions that depend on security and integrity. Three levels of development will be assessed: new forms of work organisation, emergence of new organisational forms and new inter-organisational relationships.
The theme examines how psychological factors influence take-up and impose limitations on the use of multimedia technology. Working from socio-psychological and psychological approaches related to the `qualities' of multimedia, two areas are examined in depth: computer-mediated communication and virtual reality. This will include issues such as social groups and work styles, telepresence, cyberspace communication, natural language interfaces, information overload and sensory integration. This theme also covers the psychological issues in leisure, shopping and education that are relevant to the design and adoption of multimedia.
The University of Edinburgh has established a cross-disciplinary multimedia forum linking computing departments, technical research institutes and social sciences, including the Management School. This provides for interaction on technical and management aspects of emerging multimedia applications. The University has a focus of research on technical, human and psychological factors associated with multimedia, and it is a key component of the Super-JANET network.
The University has links with local initiatives in multimedia, including the National Museum of Scotland, the Scottish Office, Scottish Enterprise, and other UK and EU interest groups.
Choose the Links to go to Institute's home page.
FAME researchers:
The Institute's major objective is to do policy-oriented research on science, technology, industry and business strategy in Japan and Europe. It has established close ties with a Japanese and European business and governments, and it is sponsored by MITI, the DTI, and major companies such as NEC and Fujitsu. Current work in the area of R&D strategies in global telecommunications companies, comparing software productivity in Japanese and European companies (Dr Tomes), and analysing product development in consumer electronics and multimedia companies (Dr Collinson)
FAME researchers:
The RCSS was one of the five centres under the Programme on Information and Communications Technology - a major research initiative on IT. It is the core of a collaborative programme of social and economic research on technology involving a number of departments at Edinburgh University. This research focuses on the social shaping of Information Technology, especially enabling technologies such as company wide information systems, EFTPoS and Electronic Data Interchange. More recent work on Multimedia includes the join European project Social Learning in Multimedia (SLIM)
FAME researchers:
TechMaPP is an academic and policy-oriented programme of research, teaching and consultancy in strategic management. The conceptual foundations of TechMaPP are Molina's socio-technical constituancies theory and Fleck's management of expertise approach and configurational technologies analysis. The conceptual instruments can be tailored to generate solutions to specific strategic problems at different levels from companies to interenational policy programmes. TechMaPP has extensive experience in multimedia and European Policy, including research on robotics, expert systems, development of a multimedia newspaper consortium, and inputs to European and Scottish policy programmes
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Published by the Research Centre for Social Sciences, 27 March 1995