What is Digital Media?

What is Digital Media?

Digital media encompasses various forms of media content that combine and integrate data, text, sound & images of all kinds in digital format and distributes it through the digital, networked environment.

Media organizations developing a presence in the digital media environment have three forms particularly compelling:

Ø  Scope to add value through repurposing of media content

Ø  It enables a shift from mass distribution models to system that are more increasingly customized to the demands and desires of individual consumers.

The influence of digital technology in cinema can be gauged through 3 principle areas:

Digital Sound:The release of Star Wars in 1977 marks the advent of ‘New Hollywood’ based on high budget action/fantasy which used high decibel sound using Dolby system.

The subsequent use of digital sound systems such as Dolby Digital, Digital theatre systems & Sony dynamic Digital generated new capacities to move sound to a new level.

Digital Editing: Through non-linear system such as Avid &Lightworks, editors were able to use wide range of technology which was easier to construct & compress pictures thereby blurring the boundaries between production and post-production giving rise to ‘cut-up’ style of 1990s such as ‘Natural Born killers’ & ‘Romeo & Juliet’, as it allowed editors to adopt a more ‘messy’ cut-and-paste style of editing.

Digital Imaging:  It allowed the wholescale adoption of computer generated technology (CGI) , where actors worked with assumed CGI’s that are subsequently inserted into a film.

The impact of digital formats on mainstream cinema can be gauged from the fact that 14 out of 20 global top-grossing films of all times including Titanic, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Lord of the Rings are special effects driven.