Page 147 - DCAP104_EXPOSURE_TO_COMPUTER_DISCPLINES

Exposure to Computer Disciplines

Notes 7.2.3 Application
Multimedia finds its application in various areas including, but not limited to, advertisements,
art, education, entertainment, engineering, medicine, mathematics, business, scientific research
and spatial temporal applications. Several examples are as follows:
Creative Industries

Creative industries use multimedia for a variety of purposes ranging from fine arts, to
entertainment, to commercial art, to journalism, to media and software services provided
for any of the industries listed below. An individual multimedia designer may cover
the spectrum throughout their career. Request for their skills range from technical, to
analytical, to creative.

Commercial
Much of the electronic old and new media used by commercial artists is multimedia. Exciting
presentations are used to grab and keep attention in advertising. Business to business, and
interoffice communications are often developed by creative services firms for advanced
multimedia presentations beyond simple slide shows to sell ideas or liven-up training.
Commercial multimedia developers may be hired to design for governmental services and
nonprofit services applications as well.
Entertainment and Fine Arts

In addition, multimedia is heavily used in the entertainment industry, especially to develop
special effects in movies and animations. Multimedia games are a popular pastime and
are software programs available either as CD-ROMs or online. Some video games also use
multimedia features. Multimedia applications that allow users to actively participate instead
of just sitting by as passive recipients of information are called Interactive Multimedia. In the
Arts there are multimedia artists, whose minds are able to blend techniques using different
media that in some way incorporates interaction with the viewer. Although multimedia
display material may be volatile, the survivability of the content is as strong as any traditional
media. Digital recording material may be just as durable and infinitely reproducible with
perfect copies every time.

Education

In Education, multimedia is used to produce computer-based training courses (popularly
called CBTs) and reference books like encyclopedia and almanacs. A CBT lets the user go
through a series of presentations, text about a particular topic, and associated illustrations
in various information formats. Edutainment is an informal term used to describe combining
education with entertainment, especially multimedia entertainment.
Learning theory in the past decade has expanded dramatically because of the introduction of
multimedia. Several lines of research have evolved (e.g. Cognitive load, Multimedia learning,
and the list goes on). The possibilities for learning and instruction are nearly endless.
The idea of media convergence is also becoming a major factor in education, particularly
higher education. Defined as separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features),
data (and productivity applications) and video that now share resources and interact with
each other, synergistically creating new efficiencies, media convergence is rapidly changing
the curriculum in universities all over the world. Likewise, it is changing the availability, or
lack thereof, of jobs requiring this savvy technological skill.

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