Multimedia

Multimedia is a combination of discrete technologies. In the simplest sense, multimedia means “many media working together as one.” Although the technologies are not necessarily communication based, the result of the combination is a communication approach or channel not previously available.

An easy, low-tech example is a “multimedia slide show,” which was considered cutting edge 30 or so years ago. Utilizing the earliest versions of multimedia, agencies—public relations and advertising—often showed clients work samples by using multiple, synchronized 35-mm slide shows with audio accompaniment. A bank of slide projectors would be used in conjunction with an audio player. The audio recording would have an extra, unheard track, consisting of trigger pulses to cue and advance the various slide projectors. A good example of this approach using music and still images can be found in the 1974 film The Parallax View, where the lead character is shown an absolutely harrowing recruiting film.

The mid-1970s marked the beginning of an unsuccessful attempt at interactive television via multimedia. Warner Cable used computer technology to deliver the QUBE system to subscribers in Columbus, Ohio. With the use of a special settop box, viewers could participate in electronic town hall meetings and surveys, play along with game shows, call plays in sports broadcasts, and even participate in mock voting during the Academy Awards. The system was prohibitively expensive to maintain and was dismantled in the early 1980s. However, the QUBE system was an important failure. The use and integration of computer technology at the system level was an important step in the enhancement of the mass communication process.

It has been only in the last decade that technology (and its associated costs) has caught up to the vision. Communication channels have substantially less impact on the content delivered: The same full motion audio video content can be consumed via television, desktop, laptop or tablet computer, along with handheld devices like personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cellular phones. This technological convergence is one signpost of a major change in society. Alvin Toffler introduces the idea of an information society in his 1980 book, The Third Wave. Toffler explained the transition under way as U.S. society is moving from an age of industry to an age of information. Television, as a technology, has moved from an Industrial Age invention to a conduit of the Information Age.

Multimedia and convergence provide the public relations practitioner with unprecedented degrees of latitude and flexibility in both the creation and delivery of messages. The positive effect of flexibility in message creation and delivery has a negative effect on message control. Message creators should realize that convergence allows for a message to easily move from one mass medium to another. For example, internal memos can show up on a website called http://www.internalmemos.com, allowing an audience to see a message that was never intended for them.