ABSTRACT
This chapter sets in motion a massive but useful simplification which we will use to structure the rest of this book. We are going to pretend that the digital world is a simple place where there are essentially two forms of media. One kind is more familiar than the other. This is ‘offline’ media, packaged in a stand-alone physical form, palpable to the real world and dominated by developments in optical disc technology in general and compact disc technology in particular. The other realm is transmitted media-abstract and invisible, where information is delivered via different forms of networks ranging from largely noninteractive broadcasting systems-radiating the same information from point to multipoint-to heavily switched systems which provide the uniquely one-to-one routeing of information which characterises interactive networks.
