Multimedia as Content: Networks and the Shaping of Multimedia Developments in Ireland
Aphra Kerr, COMTEC, DCU
Presented to: Ireland, Europe and the Global Information Society: A Conference for Social Scientists Dublin, 24-25 April, 1997.
New information and communication technologies based on the increasing power of microprocessors have been hailed by both policy makers and academics as a major new source of employment, economic growth and social change. This message, which emerged as far back as the 1970s, has been reshaped and remoulded today to focus on the potential offered by multimedia technologies, both on-line and off-line.
In Ireland the discourse of the ‘information society’, ‘multimedia’ and the ‘internet’ have been adopted relatively recently due to initiatives coming from both the European Commission and multinational computer firms based in Ireland. It is significant to note however that definitions of multimedia have been dominated by the industrial and technological conception, ignoring other issues. The prevailing discourse is about consumers and not citizens, about the number of jobs and not their quality.
The first part of this paper will present findings from a national survey of the development of multimedia in Ireland 1996/7. This report adopted a social shaping approach which highlights the pertinent factors, networks and actors which are shaping the particular conceptions and constituents of multimedia in Ireland today.
The second part of this paper reconceptualises multimedia as content and outlines the programme of work which this researcher is about to embark on. This paper proposes that one needs to think of multimedia not just as a technology encompassing hardware and software but that one needs also to consider multimedia as content.
This paper is reporting on the first stage of a two year EU funded Targetted Socio-Economic Research project, entitled Social Learning in Multimedia, or SLIM. (1)
(1: The Social Shaping of Multimedia in Ireland: Actors, Networks and Relationships [in press] is being published as a COMTEC Research and Policy Paper, No. 3. Details from PrestonP@ccmail.dcu.ie)
The project involves eight different research centres around Europe all with experience in socially oriented technological and policy research.(2)
(2: See home page http://www.ed.ac.uk/~rcss/SLIM/SLIMhome.html)
The project aims to investigate the ‘emergence and adoption of the multimedia technologies which underpin the transition to an information society’. (Williams, 1995) Adopting a social learning approach the centres will examine the development and use of new multimedia products and services at national and regional level, exploring both supplier strategies and user innovation.
Three areas, or settings, are targetted for study; the organisation/public services, education and cultural content aimed at the final user, although not necessarily in the home. The COMTEC research centre is the lead site co-ordinator for the cultural content sector.
Within the research programmes of the EC’s Fourth Framework this project is very much a unique attempt to explore the potential of in-depth social scientific methods and to address the need for more user-oriented, demand side research.
Multimedia is a shifting and contested concept. A few years ago a digitally controlled tape show would have been a multimedia product. To an artist performance art was often called a multi-media presentation. It is surprising how our conceptions have changed. Today when we talk of multimedia we tend to think of a more computer based definition. We think of CD-ROMs, the internet, Gameboys and Nintendo.
‘There’s a lot of confusion about multimedia, a lot of hype, ..including a strong perception outside the computer industry and in the general business world that multimedia is vaguely something to do with U2, the Internet and kid’s video games.’
(ComputerScope, July - Aug,1995, pg. 30)
What these products all have in common are that they are based on computer technology and they provide information in more than one form; usually a combination of images, text, sound and video. Increasingly products are defined by their level of interactivity, the extent to which the user can engage with the content.
Thus we can, and usually do, describe multimedia in very technical and physical terms, a multimedia PC, a multimedia CD-ROM, a multimedia package. But this is just one way of defining multimedia.
As (Hansen, 1996) points out we can also define multimedia from an authoritative actor’s point of view. Authoritative actors might be large companies or politicians. As a common understanding is formed a concept becomes less contested and more inflexible; closure occurs.
The predominant image of multimedia in Ireland at present is based on its physical characteristics as espoused by a limited number of authoritative actors in the IT and software supply sectors. Thus we have a convergence between the first approach to defining multimedia and the second.
For example actors like in Ireland like Microsoft, Intel and Apple larely converge as a social group in defining multimedia as an extension of the computer’s capabilities. First we had computers with keyboards, now we have computers with CD-ROM drives and speakers. Initially we all used WordStar, now we have Windows 95 with built in multimedia functionality. First we had stand-alone computers and then came connectivity, modems and Internet Explorer. The C has been added to IT.
If one was to view the mainstream media over the past five years the history of multimedia is nothing more than a series of technical innovations and product launches. At present the conceptions of a few ‘authoritative’ actors are those which are heard. They launch a new product in a blaze of publicity and it inevitably has the tag ‘multimedia’.
If I was to take a more socio-historical perspective on the development of multimedia my definition might embrace some alternative definitions. This approach starts from a position that existing technologies are a reflection of the state of society and the historical period in which we dwell.
Thus tape/slide presentations reflected the state of multi-media shows in 1992. The Office of Public Works in Ireland was then installing these shows in interpretative centres around the country. They involved a lot of work but the quality of the sound and images, the ability to have stills but also movement of stills intercut to a soundtrack was a very powerful communicative mix. It resembled closely a cinematic and group experience.
Indeed many of the techniques involved, fading to black, zoom-ins and outs were adopted from the cinema. Yet it went beyond the cinema in terms of the quality of the images, the use of graphics and the overlaying of images from up to 16 projectors. The form of these multi-media shows was very different from cinematic forms.
At that stage multimedia was also a term widely used in educational circles to describe teaching support materials. A lecture given using overheads, a video and slides was definitely multimedia.
Within telecommunications the development of the Integrated Services Digital Network or ISDN was seen and marketed as the image, music, text network, capable of transmitting multimedia, although anyone who witnessed the launch of EURO-ISDN in 1992 could hardly have been impressed by the flickering images and blurred movement of transmitted images.
What a socio-historical approach allows us to see is that multimedia is a continualling developing concept that is not just tied to computers. It is also not a new concept. It did not arrive suddenly with the launch of Windows 95 or the first Gateway 2,000 multimedia PC.
The national survey of developments in multimedia which I will go on to discuss tried to identify who were the main authoritative actors operating in the Irish context and tried to trace their relationships and spheres of influence.
This approach is grounded in the social shaping of technology approach, a theoretical approach which emphasises the social context in which a technology is developed. It also draws on theories from the national systems of innovation approach within economics, a school of thought which emphasises the role of institutions, actors and most especially their inter-relationships in a national context which shape the development of inventions, innovations and their use in different application areas.
Finally the approach recognises that technologies are actively reshaped by the cultural landscape into which they are placed. Users by placing a technology within their lives can go beyond merely using a technology, they can attribute values and meanings to it that go far beyond what the suppliers originally envisaged. In addition the content of media technologies may actively contribute to both the consumption and reconstruction of culture and social relations.
‘The word is out in the US that Ireland is the place for multimedia’ (Sunday Business Post, 2/7/95, pg.11)
Ireland has a complex and varied heritage provides a rich resource upon which developers of cultural content can draw. Combined with the fruits of a strong industrial development policy pursued by the government of the Republic of Ireland (RI) from the 1960s and, in particular, an emphasis on microelectronics from the 1980s, Ireland provides a useful case for the study of social learning in multimedia and the development of new content and artistic forms for multimedia platforms.
Shaping Factors
1: The development of multimedia in Ireland is influenced by the existence of a particular national identity and cultural heritage based on a Celtic and colonial past. This culture incorporates aspects of Celtic, Anglo-Irish and Anglo-Saxon identities. Officially the country is bi-lingual.
2: The scale and peripherality of the island at the edge of Europe poses particular challenges and opportunities which are placed in sharp relief by analysing other countries in the SLIM network.
3: The unresolved ‘national question’ and the division of the island into two political entities for most of this century have created important political, social and economic shaping forces. Importantly this involves a continuing and active search for a unifying identity and particular peace initiatives.
4: The RI has a highly centralised political and administrative system. Politics is dominated by local and national issues.
5: Demographically RI has a low population density, a high rate of dependency and a large highly educated and youthful work pool (3.5 million in RI and 1.5 million in NI). This demographic pattern is quite unique.
6: Four demographic trends are important; the rate of emigration, the destination of emigrants, the profile of those who emigrate, and the rate of return. These trends shape the scale and capabilities of the knowledge base, the creation of downstream innovative indigenous firms and create the Irish ‘diaspora’, a very large, but culturally contiguous market for new MM goods and services.
7: While job creation has been buoyant since 1989 there is still a high rate of unemployment. In 1991 it was 16.8% while the EU average was 10.4% despite record emigration levels in the late eighties.
8: The RI experienced late but rapid industrialisation and urbanisation compared to other EU member states. While the primary sector remains comparatively strong today the RI has a uniquely large ICT supply sector dominated by foreign owned firms and a positive balance of technology trade flows. In the last decade there has been a particular policy focus on the creation of a strong software service industry. Ireland therefore has strong competencies in both hardware and software supply.
9: Ireland, given its size, has achieved a considerable reputation internationally in the creation of media content, especially in the fields of literature, film and music. The use of the English language for these products has ensured a wide distribution.
10: The economy, while still suffering from a heavy burden of public debt and a high rate of unemployment, has been the fastest growing economy in Europe in the last five years [an average of 5% growth in GDP annually]. The RI is one of the few economies on target for qualifying to join the EMU.
11: Nevertheless the economy has benefited considerably over the past five years from EC transfers, particularly in the form of structural funds. These funds have largely been used to support industrial and technological innovation including funding for research and development, financial supports for industry and trials in MM. There is concern that these funds may diminish from 1999.
12: Significantly the market within Ireland has to date shown a very slow rate of adoption of new ICTs both in the home and in schools. In the main the high technology supply sector has produced goods for export. The telecommunications sector is dominated by one strong player, Telecom Eireann. While international telephone charges in Ireland are cheaper than the European average, connection fees, monthly rental and both local and trunk calls are dearer. (Telephone Users' Advisory Group, 1995) This may help to explain the low rate of home connections to the internet.
13: The main drivers behind the development of MM initiatives have been the multinational computer companies, EU funded telematics programmes and university based research and development centres. In addition many small new multimedia companies are developing bespoke and niche multimedia products aimed at the commercial and intermediate sector. Those who are developing products/services aimed at the final user are dependent on international distribution and funding partners.
Images of Multimedia.
In general MM is interpreted in Ireland as being synonymous with CD-ROM and internet/WWW technology. There is a widely held perception that it is intricately linked with computer technology and is therefore the domain of computer scientists, programmers and engineers. To an extent one could argue that this perception has been created by the highly visible profile of large multinational computer hardware and software companies like Microsoft whose corporate definition of MM is widely disseminated through numerous media channels.
Within government the emergent MM industry is seen as tangible evidence of the ‘information society’; as proof of how technologically advanced and well educated the population is. The government has taken pride from the success of its industrial policy for the last twenty years which has managed to attract most of the world’s leading computer companies to locate in Ireland.
Recent policies have aimed at deepening linkages between the foreign owned multinationals and the Irish economy through their involvement in policy oriented expert groups, industrial associations and the development of locally based R&D facilities. Government policy also supports indigenous companies through seed capital and marketing assistance. To date software and hardware companies have mainly benefited.
Government and public ‘information society’ initiatives in the area have been few, highly publicised, but low on content. Despite the launch of a government web site most government documents are still only available on paper. There are no experiments in on-line democracy although the government has commissioned some CD-ROM titles and the national social services board have developed a citizen’s on-line information service. There are thus very few public demonstration initiatives by government. Any which exist are localised and most are funded by EU programmes.
Two weeks ago the Information Society Ireland Strategy for Action was launched in which multimedia content development and localisation is identified as a key growth area (Committee, 1996) pg58). Fiscal instruments were highlighted as one way of encouraging investment and development in this area. The predominant rethoric of the report is to create and maintain competitive advantage in new information -based services and to actively pursue foreign direct investment from global players.
Those companies which are already involved in the commercial exploitation of MM content, as opposed to the delivery platforms, see MM through slightly less rose-tinted glasses. They are aware that it is very difficult to generate profits from CD-ROM titles, particularly in the small Irish market. Thus CD-ROM titles are predominantly aimed at world-wide circulation and often funded through EU research programmes. In a large number of cases they are once-off titles which tend to repackage information gleaned from other media.
Many titles are produced within the criteria circulated by EU research programmes. The latest call for proposals under the Info 2,000 programme saw Irish companies involved in 9 of the 80 successful projects. Most however are in the area of information management and repackaging. In addition many companies have been developing their competencies while working on MM installations for EU funded heritage centres. Such findings raiase questions as to the extent to which novel content generation is actually taking place.
The internet has been hailed in the media both as ‘the’ information superhighway and as ‘just’ an appetiser for what has yet to come. With some exceptions the people making money are the companies who are designing web pages as publicity shop-fronts for businesses. In general MM companies view internet technology as just a new means of communicating. Their strategy is to try and develop content which can be packaged across a number of media, including traditional print and audio-visual.
A small but expanding area of MM development is in the creation of highly animated and interactive content for gaming platforms. Here the potential for export related growth is perceived to be very high, there is a high demand for staff with relevant skills and there are highly competitive and secretive strategies being pursued by companies.
The dominant image of Ireland, which is actively promoted by state agencies, is of a modern high-technology production centre. In contrast to this image recent reports would suggest that the consumption and use of ICTs in Ireland is very low. There is a low installed base of computers outside business and internet connections are low by European standards, particularly in comparison to the Scandenavian countries. Sales strategies by retailers are focussed on ‘educating’ parents in ‘techno-child’s speak’.
Finally it is clear that while there is a single dominant definition of MM in Ireland, that definition is shaped by the high technology producers of hardware and software and the relevant industrial development agencies. There is a lack of debate with regard to the social implications of MM related developments, and what discourse there is often derives from EU policy initiatives. The prevailing discourse is about consumers and not citizens, about the number of jobs and not their quality.
[See map of actor-network, Appendix A]
In order to understand the national appropriation of MM in Ireland one must take into account the small size of the country and therefore the inevitability of certain actors and institutions being influential across many spheres. Given the lack of government/public sector initiatives private interests are jostling for control of institutions and the market in both collaborative and competitive strategies.
One example of this are the strategies of Microsoft Ltd. Its network of nodes infiltrate government policy through the Information Society Steering Group, education through its strategy of offering free software to schools, the community through projects like Tramlines in Ballymun, the arts through their sponsorship of ArtHouse and the internet through services like ‘Shop Ireland’. Microsoft employs almost a thousand people in Ireland and is conservatively estimated to earn over £1,440m in export revenue (1995 figs, Irish Computer Jan, 1996). Their importance as an actor may thus be measured in quantitative economic terms as well as more social and cultural capital terms.
Size is however no indication of networking capability. One can also find very energetic and influential (if not in employment and revenue terms) small MM companies like Nua Ltd., an internet development company. One of the founders is also a journalist in the mainstream media, author of a government sponsored report on the Internet in Ireland, and writes a regular on-line newsletter on aspects of the internet. A co-founder is secretary of Electronic Frontier Ireland, a non-governmental lobby group. The company is one of the Irish representatives on the EU sponsored Midas-Net, a member of the industry association, the IIMA, and responsible for designing community initiated web sites in various counties around Ireland in collaboration with Telecom Eireann. Nua was founded in 1995 and employs only 16 people full time.
Previous research has found that in Ireland media companies were informed of new developments in ICTs through, in order of importance; word of mouth (i.e. informal meetings at conferences, etc.) international research projects and personal research, often initiated by media content requirements (i.e. a computer magazine doing an article on MM). (Kerr, 1994) In a small country like Ireland it is apparent that conferences both at home and abroad as well as existing media (television, radio, print, internet) are important shapers of the social agenda. To this end government agencies like An Bord Trachtála assist companies financially to attend international conferences like Milia and E3 each year. These are widely reported in the mainstream media.
The Irish Interactive Multimedia Association (IIMA) publishes an annual directory of MM companies and holds regular workshops to disseminate best practise in technology and other matters. As an informal forum the meetings allow for technological updates and discussion with competitors. The association is hosted by a third level institution and was established with EU funding.
Any cursory overview of how technologies are shaped in the Irish context cannot ignore the major influence of EU research programmes (Fourth Framework, MEDIA, Info 2,000). In the absence of locally available research funding sources both companies and universities are dependent on these programmes to enable them the space and resources to experiment and learn.
These programmes also shape the issues and research agendas which are pursued. Despite, or indeed because of this, Irish companies have been very successful in finding international partners and getting research funding. In addition one of the most successful initiatives in Ireland, the EU funded Programme in Advanced Technology has led to innovative applications of applied technology developed in partnerships between university graduates and industry.
In terms of infrastructure and service provision Ireland’s telecommunications system is still dominated by a monopoly player, Telecom Eireann, who also has a controlling interest in the largest cable company, Cablelink. Recent moves into internet service provision has seen the company diversify in an attempt to prepare for deregulation. Only recently two service providers (TE being one) have started to offer internet access throughout Ireland for the cost of a local call. This may contribute to a growth in home use of the internet which by European standards is still low. TE is also involved in the sponsorship of various research programmes including the work of Broadcom and individual postgraduate students. This work is mainly technical and focused on in-house user groups.
While the government is to a large extent involved in infrastructural provision the government as regulator has been very slow in licensing competitors and re-regulating the marketplace. The Telecommunications Bill, 1996, provides for the establishment of a Director of Telecommunications in advance of the launch of a competitor to TE in the mobile phone business. This appointment has just been made and should allow a more tranparent regulatory environment. While other state owned utility companies like the Electricity Supply Board and Coras Iompar Eireann are legally allowed to provide telecommunications infrastructure they have as yet failed to do so. (4)
(4: This appointment had still to be made when Esat, a competitor to TE in mobile telephony, began operating in March, 1997.)
Broadcasting is also dominated by one national player, RTE, which is funded through a mixture of license fee and advertising. The Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Bill 1993 placed an obligation on RTE to fund and broadcast independent programming. Broadcasting policy is still under discussion after the publication of a green paper in 1995 and the heads of a new bill in 1997. Meanwhile RTE is focusing their multmedia initiatives around digitising their archives and developing content aimed at the diaspora market.
A number of initiatives were launched before the Irish presidency of the EU (1996) including the establishment of the Steering Committee for a National Information Society Strategy and Action Plan (March 1996) and several conferences on issues related to the information society. However Ireland only produced a strategy document in the last month.
The lack of policy the area of new ICTs recently gained considerable media attention when it emerged that primary and secondary schools were raising their own finance for IT training and hardware while universities were developing interim programmes to cater for the demand from the IT supply sector for graduates.
Finally to content developers. Many traditional media companies have been developing electronic publishing departments in an attempt to ‘keep up to date’. Most are designed not as profit centres but as a learning space for staff and as a useful marketing tool. Within the more traditional media forms companies have been including information on new media; supplements in newspapers, magazines and programmes on television and radio. These are usually an extension of their core activities.
Meanwhile new MM companies are involved in a multiplicity of activities. These vary from EU funded initiatives (MM installations, POI, CD-ROM and internet) to niche CD-ROMs training tools to once-off publicity events. Most involve multiple partners and sub-contracting of work, including the utilisation of specialist skills in the university based PATs.
One might find it hard to reconcile the gap between high technology production and low levels of consumption and use in Ireland until one looks at the size of the population and the fact that most foreign companies who establish in Ireland are export orientated, and indeed are encouraged by government to be so. Much of the MM discourse highlights the potential Irish diaspora market after a hundred years of emigration; yet little is said of the domestic market. And while there are cases of local initiatives which are attempting to source, experiment and exploit the potential of new ICTs there are still many for whom basic access and computer literacy are pertinent issues. MM is still a long way away for these people, a fiction rather than a reality.
On a theoretical level the next stage of the SLIM research project will drawn even further on concepts and resesearch in the communications discipline, in particular the sub-disciplines of political economy of the media, communication theory, reception analysis and media studies. This allows one to go beyond the totalising and pervasive concept of multimedia as technology; i.e. defined as hardware and software to look at multimedia as form and content.
To students of communications the distinction between form and content is easily made, unfortunately these distinctions are not made in other fields. This is not just an academic and linguistic exercise. It is particularly evident today in discussions about software.
Software consists of the computer programmes, the code and the interface. However in much of the information society and authoritative actor’s rhethoric software has almost become synonymous with content, everything that happens when we turn on our computer screen. From a business point of view it has resulted in a lack of attention being paid to content development, particularly by computer firms and consequently many failed multimedia titles.
The need to go beyond purely technological definitions of multimedia is clear. We would never say that we went to see the Michael Collins film because the latest type of camera was used, or even at the level of form because the epic genre is particularly gripping. Rather we might say that the story-line is probably pretty good. Animated discussions about java applets and CD-ROM speeds by computer enthusiasts begin to fall into context.
Another essential point used in the communications/media approach to defining multimedia would be that content is multi-dimensional. Data is not the same as information, and not all forms of information and knowledge are the same. Indeed the new learning economy theories acknowledge the important distinctions between and dimensions of both information and knowledge in relation to how individuals, firms and nations innovate.
Yet the information society concept tends to collapse such distinctions. There is little appreciation of the qualitative difference between different types of information or indeed different types of information jobs within the information economy. Thus a graphic designer is classified in the same way as someone involved in data entry.
The COMTEC project team however makes these distinctions. Our research is focussed on particular types of industries which are producing particular types of multimedia content. This content is representational rather than just raw data. It is tentatively called cultural content.
The choice of ‘appropriate’ case studies was made from the total population of companies in the following categories;
1: Traditional cultural industries [print, audio-visual, music]
2: Diversified computer software and hardware companies
3: New MM content developers.
4: Other [Educational/Voluntary group developers]
The following criteria was used in selecting appropriate case studies;
1: The case must be located on the island of Ireland with a fully independent management [or more than 50% Irish].
2: The creative ideas must originate in Ireland or from an Irish national. [This may be modified to include one localisation case.]
3: The product idea may originate with a client, with a MM producer.
4: The MM product must be aimed at final, not intermediate users.
5: The content must have some degree of interactivity and be digitally rendered in the final stage of dissemination.
The methodology will aim to integrate in-depth social scientific/ ethnographic work with the broader contextual work contained in the national reports. Thus linkages will be made between the ‘microsocial’or foreground and the background trends.
There are three aspects to the study of the COMTEC led multimedia study. The first will focus on supplier strategies and design. The second will focus on user innovation and consumption in cyber-cafes while the thrid will more closely examine multimedia texts as form and content.
Content is more than just software. Traditionally Ireland has achieved considerable international success, given her scale, in the creation of content for a variety of media, from film to printed literature. If multimedia is viewed as potential new media and cultural form what then are the implications for Ireland.? Content may indeed be the driver which will provide some of the forecasted jobs and economic growth of the information economy. This may have interesting implications for Irish culture in a global and national context.
A reorientation away from a technological conception of multimedia towards content would have important implications for both industrial and cultural policy in Ireland. At present industrial and cultural policy is formulated by two different government departments, one focusing on the creation of jobs, the other on the development of culture(s).
For the last thirty years industrial policy in Ireland has focused on attracting globally mobile high technology firms to locate in Ireland. The ISIS report continues in this vein. Certainly the country has benefited in terms of jobs. But increasingly in the 1980s there was a realisation in both academic and business circles that these global players were volatile employers with highly mobile capital and production processes which could be moved elsewhere as world markets changed. This put Ireland in a highly dependent state; dependent on these firms for jobs, for technological transfers and technological knowledge.
A focus on indigenous comparative advantages and networking concepts began to enter Irish industrial policy in the 1980s. Indigenous firms were encouraged though a number of policy measures to create linkages to foreign multinational firms and to develop new innovative products and processes themselves. Policy however tended to focus on technology hardware and software producers. Content producers often fell between the boundaries of industrial and cultural agencies and the new innovation initiatives. At present multimedia firms are being defined in a highly industrial and technological manner in Ireland and thus are beginning to be included within industrial policy. Meanwhile the media, the cultural industries, values and societal issues are dealth with by the department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht.
This paper would argue that if a new multimedia industry is to emerge and if content production is ever to fulfill it’s potential to exploit indigenous skills and resources to create new jobs, generate export led economic growth and importantly create new symbolic content there will have to be a more co-operative approach between the different industrial and cultural logics and actors. The production of multimedia content involves diverse skills, much sub-contracting of work and tends to cut across previously established boundaries and institutions.
There is a need to pay attention to the paradox that Ireland is a relatively important producer of high technology goods and services given scale while at the same time there is a low level of consumption and use in a variety of settings including schools, public institutions and homes.
Finally the evidence which suggests that companies are merely repackaging existing content for the new multimedia platforms undermines all the publicity which claims that Ireland is entering a ‘Second renaissance’, a new flowering of creativity and cultural development. (Committee, 1996:19). Ireland may indeed become the place for multimedia repackaging of content generated in another place and time.
Committee, I.S.S. 1996. 'Information Society Ireland Strategy for Action' . Dublin: Forfás.
Hansen, F. 1996. 'Multimedia Definitions’. E-mail to the SLIM network. .Denmark.
Kerr, A. 1994. 'The Use of Communication Technologies and the Potential Adoption of ISDN in the Irish Media and Information Industries.' MA Thesis, School of Communications. Dublin: Dublin City University.
Telephone Users' Advisory Group, T. 1995. 'Future Trends as they relate to Tariffs in the Telecommunications Sector'.
Williams, R. 1995. 'Social Learning in Multimedia’. Proposal to the Targeted Socio-Economic Research (TSER) Programme. Edinburgh:Research Centre for the Social Sciences.