ABSTRACT
If asked the question, ‘What do you understand by the term ‘multimedia’?’ nine out often respondents, I contend, would answer: ‘the Internet’.1 More seriously, while it is clear that the Internet is just one element within the multimedia sector, the ready conflation of the two terms would be understandable. After a number of distinctly underwhelming predecessors and contemporaries (laser disc, CDi and to some extent, CD-ROM) the Internet, put simply, appears to be ‘the real McCoy’: the technology that will finally begin to realize the potential of digitally mixed media on a grand scale, and provide substance to claims regarding the increasing ‘convergence’ between the telecommunications, computing and media industries.
