Digital Dominance
“Video killed the radio star
- in my mind and in my car,
we can’t rewind
we’ve gone too far”
Embed video:
iframe width=”640” height=”480” src=”https://
www.youtube.com/embed/W8r-tXRLazs?rel=0”
frameborder=”0” allowfullscreen>
Dating from 1979, this song
by the Buggles looks at the
impact of the advance of
20th century technology on
entertainment media. It was the
first video to air on MTV when it
opened in the United States in
16 IGNIS
1981 and the first video shown
on MTV classic when it opened
in the UK in 2010.
Nowadays we can actually
rewind radio, something that
only belonged in science
fiction stories 40
years ago. If we could,
would we really want
to stop technological
advances? Is digital
dominance inevitable?
We access books
electronically, download
songs immediately,
stream films where and
when we want, play
video games on the move
and are about to discover 3D
adventures in our own home
with the launch of the Oculus
Rift and other devices this
summer. Are we destined to
become more enthralled by
electronic media? Is the death
of other media inevitable as
digital forms grow?
One of the claims for the
survival of vinyl is that there
is a richness of sound from
it unavailable with mp3. At
the 2016 Gadget Show Live,
they used a mass audience
blind test to find out which