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ICTS AND DEVELOPMENT – TRENDS IN E-STRATEGIES & DIGITAL MEDIA

What Is an E-Strategy?

At the national level, E-Strategy refers to a plan of action—typically a strategy document written by state leaders—illustrating how ICTs are to be developed and used to achieve the economic, social, and development objectives of a country. E-strategy thus guides and focuses government priorities in ICT development. It explains how institutions interact with one another and how they share resources and responsibilities for ICT development. It specifies a multi-sector activity that involves leaders from government, the private sector, academia and civil society. This chapter deals exclusively with e-strategy at the national level. It uses the terms e-strategy, national e-strategy, national ICT plan, and national ICT strategy interchangeably.

Trends in E-strategies – a review of 40 countries

E-strategies have been on the international development agenda in recent years. The Group of Eight (G-8) and the United Nations (UN), among others, have advocated the need for developing countries to establish information and communication technology (ICT) programs to better use ICT for development. In 2000, the Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) was launched under the auspices of the G-8. In 2001, the UN Secretary General—with the recommendation of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)—created the ongoing Task Force. In 2003, world leaders met for the first phase of the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) and adopted a Plan of Action encouraging that national e-strategies be developed by the time the second phase of WSIS convenes in November 2005.

Some countries, mostly developed ones, initiated e-strategies on their own. They recognized the potential ICT has for their economies and societies. They championed plans and actions that included ICT as an important part of their respective national strategies.

Countries that launched e-strategies early on and followed through are reaping benefits today; these countries are regarded as forerunners in ICT development. For instance, Singapore began its ICT program in 1991, the United States did in 1993, and Canada, Japan, and most European nations started shortly thereafter.

Developing a national e-strategy is a daunting task. It requires an understanding of the social and development priorities of a country. It requires vision and leadership from the highest levels of government. It requires rationalizing how individual ICT objectives are to be carried out, both in assigning responsibility to individual government agencies and in committing financial resources. It also requires government emphasis on measuring results so outcomes can be assessed and future directives can be planned based on real data and concrete information (see annex 5A for a selected list of resources for ICT policies and e-strategies).

E-Strategy and Development

E-strategy objectives are tied to the country’s overall development objectives, which include topics such as education, health, government, business, and industry. Antidevelopment is intended not as an end in itself but as a means to fulfilling the larger development needs of country. Linking e-strategy to a country’s development strategy also gives credibility to the ICT program and confers wider acceptance to it outside ICT circles.

Connecting e-strategy to development requires coordination and sequencing across governmental agencies. For example, if a country wants to introduce distance education, it should tie its initiative not only to e-strategy objectives (such as promoting e-literacy or enhancing the use of ICT in education) but also to “d-strategy” and more generic policy objectives (such as developing ICT usage or improving education delivery in general). The latter may involve the diversification of its economy from traditional to newer sectors (World Bank 2005).

E-Strategy Life Cycle

E-strategies move through several stages of life cycle, as shown in the diagram in figure 5.2.The e-strategy life cycle can be broken down into three parts. At the beginning, a national ICT vision is developed.

This vision takes into account the current ICT availability, development objectives, and input from various stakeholders. Next, responsible institutions and organizations are identified to carry out the assigned tasks. Finally, the e-strategy is monitored to assess the level of progress achieved in the country’s ICT capability.

E-Strategy Review Methodology

Looking at the e-strategies from the 40 selected countries, two forms of analysis have been carried out:

• Analysis I: How are e-strategies formulated? Thee-strategies are evaluated for how they link to a country’s development goals, how they indicate institutional and budgetary support for implementation, and how they incorporate M&E mechanisms. This chapter uses an analytical framework designed to assess basic elements of e-strategies and to allow comparisons across country, income, and region groups.
• Analysis II: What do e-strategies focus on? The main themes of each e-strategy, such as e-government or ICT infrastructure, are examined. For each theme, prominent objectives and interventions are identified. For example, within e-government, government-to-government (G2G) applications may be seen by some countries as atop objective and process reform a primary means to develop G2G.

Framework for E-Strategy ANALYSIS I

Four criteria are used to evaluate national e-strategies in Analysis I (figure 5.3). Mapped to the e-strategy life cycle discussed earlier, the four review criteria are:

• Development linkages
• Use of indicators
• Implementation mechanisms
• Monitoring & Evaluation mechanisms

Each criterion is scored on a scale of 0 to 3, where 0 is low and 3 is high. Scores are assigned on a normative basis based on how countries perform relatively. Annex 5C shows details of the scoring scale and a summary of score cards from Analysis I. Descriptions of each review criterion and the rationale for using it follow. Development Linkages ►This criterion determines how tightly e-strategy is linked to the country’s larger political, economic, and social development goals. To evaluate development linkages, e-strategies are scored based on closeness of the e-strategy to its stated objectives and to the country’s other goals.

Use of Indicators ►This criterion gauges the use of data indicators in e-strategies. Using indicators is essential for accurately benchmarking base line analysis, for formulating targets, and for M&E (which is considered separately in the analysis). Benchmarking is useful for assessing the country’s current level of ICT development.

The e-strategies are assessed for the degree to which they do cross-country comparisons in baseline assessments and target setting. Cross-country comparisons help provide the context in which countries can understand their current level of development. Incorporating benchmarks relative to other countries also helps identify areas of potential comparative advantage. To evaluate the use of indicators, e-strategies are scored on four points:

1. 1. Fit to goals: the extent to which data are selected or customized to
   2. fit the main thematic areas of the e-strategy and the initiatives they are intended to advance.
2. Baseline data: the extent to which baseline data are used in understanding the country’s current state of ICT development.
3. Target setting: the extent to which quantitative and qualitative targets are established to achieve the main objectives of the e-strategy.
4. Cross-country comparison: the extent to which cross-country information is integrated into baseline analysis and used in establishing credible targets.

Implementation Mechanisms ►This criterion evaluates the types of institutions designated to manage e-strategy implementation. The e-strategies are assessed for the degree of clarity with which they address implementation mechanisms and related roles and responsibilities. E-strategies must be explicit about implementation roles if they are to move from being conceptual plans to practical tools that can lead a country’s ICT development efforts. To evaluate implementation, e-strategies are scored on two factors:

1. Institutional structure and responsibility: whether e-strategies are specific about what institutions would lead implementation of key components and whether e-strategies clarify responsibility and report operational mechanisms.
2. Budget: whether specific details are given about budgetary requirements and about potential funding sources to implement key initiatives.

Monitoring and Evaluation Mechanisms. This criterion assesses whether M&E is an explicit part of the e-strategy and whether there is a clear plan as to how M&E will be conducted. The starting assumption is that M&E is integral to the design and implementation of effective e-strategies. Incorporating M&E ensures that e-strategies are explicit and realistic in what they aim to achieve. It also ensures that their implementation is regularly assessed and realigned so that scarce public resources are properly used. The credibility of e-strategies depends upon a solid and realistic M&E foundation. E-strategies are scored on two factors in evaluating M&E: structure and responsibility, and budget.

Framework for E-Strategy ANALYSIS II

Two steps are taken to evaluate e-strategies in Analysis II(figure 5.4). First, a broad set of ICT development themes are identified across all 40 countries. Second, a common set of objectives and

As opposed to normative scoring, the themes, objectives, and interventions are now counted and their relative frequency noted among given countries. Annex 5D shows the detailed tabulated results from Analysis II for the 40 countries. Measurement indicators shown in the diagram in figure5.4 can help gauge e-strategy performance in a specific thematic or application area. In our review, such indicators were not seen in e-strategies. Incorporating data indicators to benchmark and measure progress based on objectives is an area countries could improve in their ICT strategies.

This section presents results of how e-strategies are formulated, highlighting their strengths and weaknesses.

Overview

Overall, e-strategies perform marginally in their designs based on the analysis (figure 5.5). On a scale of 0 to 3, they fall short of midway, at 1.3. This indicates that although countries have made significant progress in setting up e-strategies for ICT development, they need to do more. The ICT strategies show better results in providing implementation details and forming

development linkages, but they are weak in incorporating M&E. E-strategies from middle-income

economies and the Middle East and North Africa region score relatively higher than those from other income or regional groups. E-strategies from Mozambique, Rwanda, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ukraine have overall best scores in the four analytical categories.

Development Linkages

The e-strategies score relatively well on development linkages, meaning that ICTs are fairly strongly tied to overall development objectives (figure 5.6). Of the four main categories for which e-strategies are assessed, development linkages score second to implementation mechanisms.

Overall, middle-income countries score highest on this measure. Mauritius, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, and Ukraine—all middle-income economies—receive good scores on development linkages. ICT may be seen by middle-income countries to be a relevant tool for tackling what they may regard as the “next level” of development challenges. For example, Trinidad and Tobago has articulated an e-strategy that is clear in describing how ICT development fits in with its non technology activities. The country’s ICT strategy explicitly states its intention to contribute to the National Development Plan (“Vision 2020”) by creating greater social equity through providing universal access to ICT. The e-strategy establishes a timetable and a methodology to determine how the expansion of ICT in the country can be leveraged to support economic, social, and environmental policy objectives. High-income countries, on the other hand, score low in development linkages because they presumably do not find it necessary to draw close and unambiguous linkages between their development initiatives and the role of ICT; the linkages may be sufficiently obvious to them. Low income countries likewise may find it difficult to conceive of and communicate the linkage between ICT and their many daunting development challenges in a cohesive e-strategy document. They may also assign higher priorities to basic necessities such as food and health than to developing ICT.

Use of Indicators

On average, the e-strategies score worse on the use of indicators than they do on development linkages, meaning that the countries reviewed use little or no data in formulating their current state analysis or developing future targets(figure 5.7).

As many as two-thirds of the e-strategies perform weakly on the use of cross-country comparison. Such poor performance indicates that strategy formulators are not crafting e-strategies to take into account where a country stands vis-à-vis other countries in ICT development. This is noteworthy because cross-country comparison is commonly used in much of the ICT-for-development literature, and because countries are often presented in terms of their relative e-readiness or e-development rankings on a number of indexes.

Though many e-strategies score low on how well they use data to fit with goals or how well they compare their own ICT development with that of other countries, many of thee-strategies score high on their use of baseline data and targets. A greater number of countries score high in their use of targets— that is, targets are embedded throughout their e-strategies—than they do in the other indicator categories. This is understandable because e-strategies are forward looking documents, charting out new territory for development and establishing targets by which to guide this process. Low-income countries—especially from Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia—show weak performance in the use of indicators(figure 5.8). Middle-income nations, however, specifically Jordan and Tunisia, score high on the use of indicators. Jordan’s “Reach” e-strategy, for example, incorporates indicators and targets throughout its plan. It draws extensively on comparisons with other countries with which Jordan either competes or that it seeks to emulate in similar levels of success in ICT development (box 5.1).

Implementation Mechanisms

Implementation mechanisms score highest among the four e-strategy formulation criteria for countries reviewed. The two categories of implementation mechanisms are shown in figure 5.9. The majority of e-strategies are clearer in the detail they provide on institutions to lead the implementation of e-strategy than they are on any other criteria on which they are assessed.

Though many e-strategies score high on implementation detail, considerably fewer are equally specific about how to finance the implementation. Most e-strategies score lower on budget details than they do on institutional structure; two-fifths provide no budget information at all (despite being explicit about institutional structures).Slovenia is one exception. In Slovenia, the implementation plan is set out in a

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detailed matrix that includes policy objectives, supporting interventions, the status of each intervention, a

measure describing the risks and dependencies of each intervention, and the government agency

responsible for each intervention. Linked to this

description of implementation and responsibility

is a detailed explanation of the funding sources

and how those funds will be deployed.

Three sources of financing are identified:

1. Existing ministry budgets. The financing of the e-strategy will be arranged to be consistent with the decentralized nature of the implementation responsibility of thee-strategy. In other words, each government ministry and agency will use existing budget money to execute their respective e-strategy responsibilities; financing will not in this instance be drawn from a central fund.

1. European Union subsidies. The central e-strategy coordinating body will disburse EU subsidies according to their priority in the National Development Plan, subject to the creation of cost appraisals.
2. International Financial Institution funds. These resources are regarded as an “additional” source of funding to be used to realize objectives that could not be completed by using funds described above. A special government resolution and needs analysis is required to obtain this line of credit.4 High-scoring e-strategies adhere to two general models concerning the types of structures that are responsible for implementing the e-strategy. The first model, where the implementation of the e-strategy is fully centralized, has the central government taking full responsibility for defining and implementing its elements. The second model has a decentralized implementation structure. In this model, different government ministries, agencies, and other stakeholders (such as the private sector) are responsible for defining and implementing parts of the e-strategy. These different entities answer to a central government oversight and coordination body.

Nigeria is an example of the first, centralized model. The role assigned to the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is to implement, monitor, evaluate, regulate, and verify ICT activities on an ongoing basis. NITDA acts under the supervision and coordination of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology. National programs to foster the development and growth of ICT in Nigeria are operated and directly controlled by NITDA by consulting—in some cases collaborating—with key stake holders. Chief Information Technology Officers are appointed in all federal agencies to advise NITDA, but they are not responsible for implementing programs per se.

Mozambique exemplifies the second, decentralized model. It emphasizes the fact that successful ICT strategy depends on the active participation of all sectors of society and the economy, including the beneficiaries. At the highest level, a National Consultative Forum is made up of diverse stakeholders from academia, the development sector, the public sector, the private sector, and civil society. Implementation partnerships are formed at the provincial level, where ICT commissions are responsible for implementing the ICT strategy. For example, the Professional ICT Curriculum and Certification program is implemented jointly by the Provincial Digital Resource Centers, the ICT policy commission, and private sector companies. A central ICT Policy Implementation Technical Unit is responsible primarily to support and advise the regional implementation bodies.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Countries from all income and region groups perform poorly in their use of M&E (figure 5.10). The vast majority of e-strategies say little or nothing about institutions or structures to monitor and evaluate their progress. Of the few e-strategies that are more specific about M&E, even fewer provide budgetary details about how to finance it.

M&E is a critical area of focus for ICT policy makers. Country leaders should, when they are formulating their e-strategy, plan to set up M&E and should commit specific financial resources to it. Doing this would help make e-strategy design and implementation effective and relevant. Without M&E, it is impossible to measure results and assess the impact of ICT initiatives. There are three countries that are exceptions: Mozambique, Rwanda, and Nigeria. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa

overall perform slightly better in both structure/responsibility and budgetary aspects of M&E among countries studied. For example, Rwanda’s e-strategy lays out in explicit detail institutional responsibilities for M&E and how M&E activities are to be integrated in the implementation machinery and timeline (box 5.2). Approaching it differently than Rwanda does, Mozambique has created projects that focus on data gathering and analysis as stand-alone initiatives of its larger strategy.

ANALYSIS II: THEMATIC AREAS OF FOCUS

This section presents results of what e-strategies focus on, illustrating differences in priority objectives and intervention tactics across countries.

Overview

E-strategies vary in their objectives and initiatives to achieve ICT development. There are nine significant thematic areas on which the ICT strategies focus (figure 5.11).5

In aggregate terms, four of the nine themes occur in over85 percent of the e-strategies. These are the following:

• E-government: providing services and information via the Internet by the government to companies, citizens, and other sections of government.
• Infrastructure: constructing physical components such as fiber-optic backbone and wired and wireless networks over which electronic communications are transmitted and received.
• E-education: using ICT in education to improve teaching and school administration and to provide basic e literacy to all levels of school system and to adult learners.
• Legal/Regulatory: creating and modifying

legal and regulatory mechanisms to enable and support ICT adoption in business and government and to safeguard users of ICT.

The remaining five themes occur in at least 40 percent of e-strategies:

• ICT industry: creating or expanding domestic ICT production of hardware, software, and services for local or foreign markets.
• IT HR development: developing human resources with ICT skills to support domestic ICT industry and attract foreign business operations.

• E-business: using ICT in traditional or new e-commerce businesses to reduce costs, improve competitiveness, and increase market reach.
• Content: creating locally relevant multimedia content to encourage ICT use. Also considered is using ICT to store cultural and historical media.
• E-health: using ICT in the administration and provision of health services and health information.

In general, the objectives identified in national e-strategies converge, particularly for e-government, infrastructure, e-education, and legal and regulatory reform themes. This suggests that these objectives are fundamental to the creation of an information society and provide the foundation for more specialized applications in, for example, the ICT sector, e-health, e-business, and content development. In contrast, the types of actions cited to implement the

commonly sought objectives by countries diverge. This is partly due to income differences. ICT maturity is related to wealth; consequently, countries employ different methods to achieve their objectives. For example, Rwanda and Hong Kong (China) both focus on government-to-citizen e-services, yet they approach the same objective differently. In Rwanda, public access points are aimed as a key intervention to disseminate government information, whereas in Hong Kong, interactive televisions are desired as a new medium to offer government information and services.

E-Government

E-government is defined in the e-strategies as the provision of services and information by electronic means between different sections of government (G2G), between government and business (G2B), and between government and citizens (G2C).E-government is the most commonly occurring component

across the surveyed e-strategies (more than 95 percent of e-strategies included this component). It is seen

In most e-strategies, the e-government component refers to a “single window” approach to integrated online public services. This often manifests itself as an e-government portal that serves as the conduit for online services. Examples include land and property registration or records maintenance (G2C), e-procurement (G2B), and centralized census and population data (G2G). There is an even spread of focus to develop G2G, G2B, and G2C across the e-strategies that contain e-government (figure 5.12). Each objective occurs in about 60 percent of the e-strategies.

Common interventions in implementing e-government applications include reforming government processes(more than 55 percent), computerizing and networking government agencies (more than 50 percent), and developing standards and protocols for ICT system interoperability (also more than 50 percent). Government process reform, the intervention most cited, typically refers to changes in internal business processes brought about by automation that complements or replaces labor intensive methods and systems. For example, Jamaica plans to replace its paper-based customs processing system with a paperless one to improve efficiency and reduce transaction costs.

Developing countries emphasize reforming existing bureaucratic processes and expanding the capacity of government networks to realize e-government objectives (figure 5.13). Developed nations, however, stress the importance of streamlining IT standards that facilitate interoperability and overcome integration issues of electronic systems. E-strategies in low- and middle-income nations not only call for developing e-government applications but also focus on generating demand for online services. They try to create awareness among citizens and businesses of the benefits of online transactions. Some approaches to e-government are worth highlighting.

Mozambique’s plan for e-government, while ambitious, focuses initially on institutional and systems level computerization rather than G2C services. To this end, Mozambique will conduct a survey of the state of ICTs in public institutions before undertaking online public services. Poland develops this approach further by focusing on a prioritized list of e-government projects with due consideration to productivity gains. Thailand will begin its e-government project with pilot projects in ministries as away to identify common and shareable data as well as to identify ministries and government agencies that are ready for computerization and process reform. These approaches contrast with many (if not most) e-strategies that merely list services to be automated or put online—thus the high count for G2C services— with little consideration to prioritization or return on investment.

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Infrastructure

Telecommunications infrastructure is crucial and fundamental to using ICT for development. Without the proper infrastructure, e-strategy is less likely to succeed, and projects may stagnate or never get off the ground. This is why most of the ICT strategies surveyed (90 percent) specify telecommunications infrastructure as an area of focus. “Universal access” is the most prevalent focus within the infrastructure component, occurring in more than 65 percent of e-strategies. To provide universal access entails providing equal access to voice and data communications networks across the country, in rural as well as underprivileged urban areas. It also often includes an emphasis on financing access through specially earmarked universal access funds.

The second most common objective within the infrastructure theme is broadband development (more than 50percent of the e-strategies surveyed identified this objective).This is frequently viewed as a way to generate consumer demand for online services and thus spur the development of such services by private businesses and government agencies. The next most significant focus is providing “telecenters” (specified by more than 50 percent of e-strategies surveyed). This focus encompasses the creation of Internet access nodes (for example, Internet kiosks and Internet Automated Teller Machines, also known as ATMs) for public use in regions where “last mile” access of ICT services to homes and businesses is not widely available.

It is worth noting that low-income countries are seeking universal access and they are the only ones focusing on creating, extending, and upgrading backbone networks (figure 5.14). This suggests that high-and middle-income countries have already implemented appropriate backbone telecommunications infrastructure. Middle-income countries look instead for Internet kiosks, ATMs, and other delivery mechanisms to extend the reach of existing networks. The lack of focus on telecenters by high-income economies suggests that such services are in less demand in these countries because affordable, basic “last mile” local telecommunications infrastructure is already available.

E-strategies from high-income countries focus on the deployment of ubiquitous broadband to households. To achieve the above objectives, the majority of e-strategies encourage the development of regulatory structures and supervisory agencies to manage a competitive, market-driven modern telecommunications infrastructure sector. Governments assume the role of facilitators, using regulation to allow other participants to get involved and ensure fair competition. This allows the other participants to help fund the implementation of the e-strategy, rather than putting scarce government funds into infrastructure development. Regulatory agencies thus oversee the introduction and ongoing management of private competition in telecommunications, a management that includes supervision of interoperability and interconnection issues among different service providers.

E-Education

E-education is a focus area in 88 percent of the national ICT strategies surveyed. The principal objective of this focus is e-literacy (that is, basic computer and application skills such as using spreadsheets and surfing the Web) in the formal and informal education system. There is a fairly even spread of focus across primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions as well as adult and community training centers, although income levels partly dictate the e-education priorities of countries.

Several different interventions to advance e-education are addressed in e-strategies. Teacher training, school and center connectivity, institutional capacity development, and distance learning are cited in over 50 percent of theestrategies—Poland’s e-education strategy

quality assurance follow, cited in over 30 percent of the e-strategies.

Interestingly, only low-and middle-income countries address distance learning and quality assurance (figure5.15). The ICT strategies that

address distance learning usually aim to increase the reach of the education system to areas that do not have formal schools. In this way, they also provide individuals or groups with a curriculum designed by the education ministry. They complement traditional higher education facilities, which tend to be fewer in developing countries. In quality assurance, countries assert the need for nationally and internationally recognized standards of e-literacy. For example, Mozambique plans to use a program similar to the International Center for Distance Learning (ICDL) to meet the needs of the public and private sector for professionals with appropriate technical skills.

Legal and Regulatory Reform

Legal and regulatory components feature in 85 percent of the national e-strategies. The principal focus of this e-strategy component is to revise existing legal and regulatory structures concerned with ICT and to create new laws that facilitate ICT-related activities (see also chapter 2 on the importance of a consistent regulatory framework). A broad range of reforms are cited in the e-strategies. Among there forms identified are rules

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to govern trade (for example, intellectual property rights, taxes, tariffs), safeguard personal privacy (for example, data protection), and facilitate e-commerce (for example, e-contracts, digital signatures, and e-payment systems).

There is a strong emphasis in the e-strategies on legal interventions that focus on the business sector (more than 70percent; see also chapter 4). This is followed by interventions that center on the government (more than 40 percent) and civil society (40 percent), which involves protecting user information and prohibiting illegal activity (figure 5.16). The commercial orientation of e-strategies is evident in their support of the business sector (for reasons of economic growth) while safeguarding the rights and interests of users and consumers in transactions with government and businesses, and in personal communications.

For trust and confidence measures, the e-strategies stress legal interventions to combat cyber-crime (80 percent of thee-strategies) nearly twice as often as they do online privacy (over 40 percent). For interventions for a stable and active ICT and business environment, the e-strategies include provisions for protection of intellectual property rights(more than 70 percent) and stimuli for the commercial sector such as tax incentives and reduced tariffs (more than50 percent) (figure 5.17). It is worth noting that a number of countries (almost 25percent)—

including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, and Romania—stipulate adherence to regional and international legal frameworks. Korea is seeking a leadership role in the effort to create such frameworks. This suggests that compliance with legal and regulatory conventions is perceived as a necessary precondition for integration into the global ICT environment.

ICT Industry Development

Developing the ICT production and service sectors is identified in more than two-thirds of the ICT strategies. Over 90 percent of the e-strategies for this theme center on producing software and hardware and providing IT services, such as outsourced development of back office systems for the export market (table 5.1).8 The distribution of objectives for product type is shared quite uniformly among software (more than 50 percent), IT services (30 percent), and hardware (more than 25percent). Twice as many e-strategies center on export markets for their ICT sectors than on their domestic markets. The attention to foreign markets is seen as important for attracting foreign investment and encourages joint ventures

between domestic and foreign companies(see also chapter 2 for discussion about attracting foreign investors and joint ventures). The overriding motivation for the focus on foreign markets is the wish to increase flows of foreign currency to the producing country. These findings are consistent with current trends in outsourcing that show how the production of hardware, software, and IT services is increasingly being relocated to countries with a skilled workforce and comparatively lower labor costs.

The data also suggest that, in general, the success of ICT sector development depends on key enabling interventions that directly support the commercialization of technology innovations. Among these interventions are technology company incubators (more than 80 percent), support for R&D (also more than 80 percent), and the promotion of ICT products and services domestically and internationally (more than 60 percent). The e-strategies also seek to nurture the ICT sector using less direct interventions— though to a lesser extent—such as support to business associations and quality assurance (both appear in more than 30 percent of the e-strategies).

Jordan is an example of a country with an e-strategy that contains a broad cross-section of objectives and interventions to support the ICT sector. In addition to the above-mentioned focus areas and interventions, Jordan plans to promote company collaboration for joint marketing and training. Further more, the government of Jordan will provide technical and financial assistance to build capabilities in operations, marketing, and management. Jordan aims to help Jordanian companies float their stocks on the Amman Stock Exchange. In part, this is to help companies stem the outflow of ICT related expertise by allowing companies to issue stocks as incentives to retain their employees.

E-Business

E-business, occurring in over 50 percent of the strategies, is not one of the most common themes in e-strategies. Typically the e-strategies define e-business as the use of ICT in business to reduce transaction costs, to broaden market reach, and to increase the productivity and speed of doing business (see also chapter 4 on the role of ICT in doing business). Some e-strategies cite e-business as a catalyst for modernizing the private sector in general (that is, not the ICT sector per se); other e-strategies, such as that of Trinidad and Tobago, seek to encourage e-business with a view to increase demand for domestically produced ICT products.

To this end, the government of Trinidad and Tobago plans to co-develop, with the private sector, an integrated e-business application for local companies to conduct online sales. Furthermore, the government has offered to help identify comparative advantages for local e-businesses and will collaborate in the development of “Skill net,” a service that provides recruitment, learning, and career information.

By far the most common target for e-business initiatives in the e-strategies are small and medium enterprises (over70 percent of the e-strategies), which would benefit most from ICT development. This contrasts with medium and large enterprises, which are the target beneficiaries of less than 5 percent of the e-strategies that focus on e-business. These businesses are typically well ahead in the use of ICT, often even further than government, and hence require less external support.

The predominant approach to support e-business adoption entails general promotion and education efforts that aim to demonstrate the benefits of e-business applications to non-ICT related businesses (this is identified in over90 percent of e-strategies that address e-business) (figure5.18). For example, many ICT strategies plan to run workshops to demonstrate productivity tools (such as spreadsheets and word processors) and e-commerce transactions (such as e-payments and contracts). Outreach and public relations—rather than direct subsidies or financial incentives—are among more common approaches used to increase awareness of the benefits of e-business in the business community as well as among the general public. The large difference between promotion and the next major intervention, training, suggests the rather limited scope government has for supporting e-business. It is noteworthy that only middle-income countries explicitly plan training initiatives for e-business.

Information Technology Human Resources Development

Although almost all ICT strategies surveyed consider human resources to be central to developing the use of ICT in the economy and society, just over half of those dedicate particular attention to developing professional IT expertise. These e-strategies uniformly view a workforce of technologists— including programmers, network administrators, and designers—to be fundamental to the ICT sector. Of those e-strategies that focus on information technology human resources development (IT HRD), the vast majority center their initiatives on developing technology professionals to meet the needs of the ICT sector (more than 90 percent), and to a lesser extent on the non-ICT business sector (almost 50 percent) and government (over 30 percent). This concentration on the needs of the ICT sector can be attributed to the commonly held view that this sector has the greatest potential for driving immediate and long term economic growth.

The leading interventions for this component of e-strategies all have to do with creating or expanding teaching capacity. Chief among these are initiatives to build new institutional capacity (that is, funding and other support to build technical training centers) to train IT professionals, an intervention identified in over 70 percent of e-strategies within this theme. Next come interventions to enhance existing IT training capacity (specified in over 60 percent of the strategies) and the development of IT curricula (in more than 50 percent of the strategies). Enhancing existing IT training capacity is intended to increase the number of qualified IT graduates by increasing the number of IT instructors, enlarging class sizes, and enhancing the availability of other educational resources. Over 50 percent of e-strategies include initiatives that involve the private sector in a variety of capacities. Special consideration is given to the private sector as advisers to the government on IT HRD. The private sector is also often cited as a source of internships and work placements, and as a way to align skills provision to demand. A few e-strategies, including those from Chile and the United Kingdom, provide a basis for their IT HRD initiatives by surveying current technology trends and working with the ICT sector to predict future labor needs.

Content

Over 40 percent of the e-strategies focus on content by either establishing a multimedia production industry or digitizing national heritage and cultural content in local languages for domestic use. The e-strategies consider the content creation industry in many instances to be a new market opportunity. But they also consider that as a duty to preserve national identity and cultural works. Poland, for instance, plans to create new content and digitize existing content (for example, works from the national library) that is of interest, and of possible use, to the public, including tourists and foreign investors.

Similarly, Ireland has established a “digital hub” to produce digital content that includes national archives, national art collections, digital maps, and works from the national library. Tunisia plans to integrate digital content creation into university curricula and create several multimedia educational institutes that have institutional relations with foreign multimedia academies. Focus on content is more prevalent in e-strategies from middle- and high-income countries. This suggests that it may not constitute a priority first step for ICT development in lower-income countries.

E-Health

An e-health strategy component occurs in only 35 percent of the surveyed national ICT strategies. This focus encompasses the use of ICT in the administration of health care organizations, the delivery of clinical services, and the creation of awareness of health issues in the general public. In those e-strategies that focus on e-health, a relatively equal distribution of emphasis between two leading objectives exists. These objectives are the use of ICT in the administration of health care organizations and online access to health education. This is followed by the delivery of clinical services, which is cited in over 40 percent of the e-strategies.

The e-strategies contain several initiatives to support and advance the use of ICT in the health care sector. Some of these initiatives are health center connectivity, instituting technical standards and protocols for integrating systems and exchanging data, training personnel, referring patients, and using online billing systems. Of these interventions, connecting health care centers to ICTs—meaning both network connectivity within the health care centers and connectivity to external networks such as regional hospitals and clinics—occurs by far the most frequently. This is cited in more than 50 percent of the e-strategies with an e-health focus. Developing technical standards for interoperability follows. In the e-strategies, connectivity is most often considered for delivering clinical services and consulting via telemedicine. However, connectivity is also viewed as benefiting health care administration by enabling improved communications, sharing resources, collecting data, and providing health information services within and among health care institutions.

Many e-strategies with an e-health focus state the need to become more cost-efficient by creating, sharing, and integrating their systems and technologies to create economies of scale. They also cite the need to increase productivity and efficiency. As might be expected, variations exist in focus areas across country, region, and income categories. For example, many Sub-Saharan African countries (such as Tanzania) plan to establish systems for essential humanitarian services (such as HIV information and nutritional surveillance). More advanced countries focus on improving and extending existing advanced services such as single patient records (Finland) and smart cards for integrated patient information systems (Czech Republic).

NEW COMMUNICATION REVOLUTION – IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL MEDIA

What is digital media?

Digital media (as opposed to analog media) usually refers to electronic media that work on digital codes. Today, computing is primarily based on the binary numeral system. In this case digital refers to the discrete states of “0″ and “1″ for representing arbitrary data. Computers are machines that (usually) interpret binary digital data as information and thus represent the predominating class of digital information processing machines. Digital media like digital audio, digital video and other digital

“content” can be created, referred to and distributed via digital information processing machines. Digital media represents a profound change from previous (analog) media. Florida’s digital media industry association, Digital Media Alliance Florida, defines digital media as the creative convergence of digital arts, science, technology and business for human expression, communication, social interaction and education.

Working with digital media

As opposed to analog data, digital data is in many cases easier to manipulate, and the end result can be reproduced indefinitely without any loss of quality. Mathematical operations can be applied to arbitrary digital information regardless of its interpretation (you can add “2″ to the data “65″ and interpret the result either as the hexadecimal number “43″ or the letter “C”). Thus, it is possible to use e.g. the same compression operation onto a text file or an image file or a sound file. The foundations of operation on digital information are described in digital signal processing.

Examples of digital media

The following list of digital media is based on a rather technical view of the term media. Other views might lead to different lists.

• Cell phones
• Compact disc
• Digital video
• Digital television
• e-book
• Internet
• Minidisc
• Video game
• World Wide Web And many interactive media

Advantages Of Digital Media

Convenience:

A website allows you to be available all day, every day. Electronic presentations can be stored, transported and displayed on a laptop. E-mail marketing enables promotions and specials to go out regularly and quickly.

Cost:

Full colour designs cost the same as one colour designs, unlike print media where each colour costs extra in the printing process. Changes to designs and information can be implemented easily and made available almost immediately

— without costly reprints and wasted copies of out-dated material. The distribution costs involved with e-mail marketing are negligible compared to the costs of mailing promotional literature or distributing flyers. Printing costs are eliminated or at least substantially reduced.

Impact:

Well-designed websites, presentations, e-mail campaigns and business CD’s have a powerful impact on clients. This makes you easier to remember and do business with. Using the latest technology for effective communication creates the impression that your company knows about the latest trends and solutions. It also makes you appear competent and efficient.

Targeting:

People who go to your web site after being specifically directed there are already interested in your goods and services and are more likely to buy from you.

Focused e-mail campaigns also enable you to reach the people who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer. Traditional mail shots may be sent to many people who have no interest at all in your current promotion and who simply throw away your expensive pamphlets.

Some more advantages are:

• Wider choice of communication mediums – CDs, minidisks, digital audio tape (DAT), pagers, mobile phones, answer-machines, digital TV, digital video, digital radio, digital photography, virtual pets, the Internet, Newsgroups, cash machines, Digitext, computer games, databases, e-mail, wordprocessors, desktop publishing, digital editing, sampling, digital watches, computer voice and written character recognition
• A greater volume of information becomes available
• Increased speed of communication, higher resolution of images and sounds
• Greater number of channels, frequencies, etc. available
• Digital technologies such as the Internet can provide more in-depth specialist information than, say, a newspaper article because they aren’t restricted by space
• More robust signal with less vulnerability to static and noise
• New text services such as Digital Ceefax and Digitext
• 24 hr access to a variety of mediums
• Greater density and coverage of communication networks means that the phenomenon of the Global Village is becoming more and more of a reality. This globalising force helps increase understanding between different cultures by cutting across national boundaries.
• Greater interactivity e.g. interactive TV football in which the viewer gets to select the camera view
• Countless documents available from any location where a computer and modem is available. This information is more up-to-date than printed media.
• New and entertaining virtual characters – Lara Croft, The BBC’s wierd and wonderful creations in Walking With The Dinosaurs, Toy Story, Ja Ja Binks
• Enables changes in working patterns. More people are now able to work from home or other more remote locations
• Offers countless learning opportunities – e.g. Interactive CD roms and educational computer games for children.
• Democratizing influences. Is the Internet an Electronic Agora?
• Allows disabled people to learn and compete in what is perhaps a slightly more level playing field
• Digital copies are always exactly like the original because digital information is zeroes and ones, whereas analog information contains continuously varying electrical or magnetic values (e.g. copies of VCR tapes always contain small errors).
• A PC CPU (Central Processing Unit) can handle routine functions for all media.
• Digital networks connecting computers can transmit all media (contrast with telephone network for analog audio and separate cable network for analog television).

Disadvantages of Digital Media

• The initial investment required to view or produce digital media artefacts may be high
• New technology can be intimidating to those who are not ‘techno-literate’. The digital revolution is exclusive – it doesn’t allow full participation for the elderly who perhaps have never received any IT experience or the poor
• Computers always seem to be crashing. Documents are at risk if there is no hard copy
• In many situations, including educational situations, digital media could reduce one-to-one contact between children and adults. This contact may be essential to the formation of sociable human beings
• Information Overload! There’s too much info – how do we choose? What about freedom from choice? Is information impotence likely to be recognised as a new medical condition!?

• Global media is becoming increasingly difficult to regulate through policies set be elected governments as the increasingly small, unelected oligopoly of media, communication and IT tycoons stomp their empires over the globe.
• The unregulated anarchy of content (perhaps most visible in the mad diversity of the Internet) allows a platform for dangerous voices – terrorists, white supremacists, pornographers, William Hague, the list goes on…
• Virtual characters such as Lara Croft dehumanise women still further by reducing the human to a series of sex-object codes
• Health problems: Screen Fatigue, Repetitive movement strain, headaches, back problems, neck problems, couch potatoism, generally being reduced to fat, largely unresponsive lumps of jelly
• Digital technology seems to be replacing people – bank assistants, shop assistants, printers, receptionists. What about humans? Where are we to go?
• A potential dystopia in which there is no escape from advertisements and commercialism
• Despite changes in technology, ownership is still in the hands of a small minority. Is Bill Gates as powerful as Bill Clinton?
• Nations that are information rich or information poor
• Continual and costly updating required. Every few years different formats become obsolete

Importance Of Digital Media – Social And Cultural Impact Of Digital Media In The Modern World Digital Media and Art Today

Contrary to the occasional stereotype of digital media as inhuman or alienating, many artists are incorporating digital effects that stimulate visceral reactions and heightened awareness of the conditions of a particular space and time. There is sensuousness, directness, and even a poetics to many of the digital works being made today. Moreover, interactivity, an artistic strategy that pre-dates digital media, is gaining new life as artists find that the equipment necessary for such effects has become much more subtle and transparent, affording viewers a more direct experience of works of art. Digital media are being used both to express the particular sensations of life in the Digital Age as well as to expand the creative possibilities for traditional subjects and forms. Artists are able to create compelling effects by selectively suppressing visual information or, by digitally enhancing visual sensations, rendering uncanny experiences of the “real.” The ability of digital media to suggest the shifting of time, space and form has inspired a number of artists to explore aspects of memory, attention and perception in their work.

Lawrence Rinder notes, “Artists can now create seamless chimeras that resonate with contemporary anxieties about the instability of perception and even life itself in this age of virtual reality and genetic engineering. BitStreams will explore the Digital Age not as something external to us, residing solely in technological objects or in a kind of ‘techno’ style, but rather as a constellation of physical, emotional and cognitive phenomena which have transformed aspects of human experience.”

Promise of Digital Learning

Digital technology makes informative content easier to find, to access, to manipulate and remix, and to disseminate. All of these steps are central to teaching, scholarship, and study. Together, they constitute a dynamic process of “digital learning.”

The sort of teaching and learning that occurs within traditional educational institutions such as schools and colleges and universities, lies at the center of our understanding of education. Similarly, the concept clearly embraces scholarship undertaken by faculty, students, and other researchers affiliated with colleges, universities, or other established research institutions (such as medical centers and think tanks). Yet digital learning extends beyond these more formal institutions to involve everyone with internet access. In some instances, traditional institutions are making their educational content available to the general public online. In other cases, individuals who may have no connection to formal academia can nonetheless engage in teaching and learning with one another through the use of new technology. The examples include Google Library Project etc.

This broad scope for our definition of education is in keeping with the open-ended, collaborative, and disintermediated nature of the digital environment. Indeed, one of the most exciting features of digital technology is its capacity to permeate society unrestricted by the walls of a school or the formal roles of teachers and students. Of course, some issues we discuss herein are unique to the particular needs of more formal academic institutions. But it is important to keep in mind the wide spectrum of activity included in the concept of “digital learning.”

Indeed, perhaps no initiative better epitomizes the concept of digital learning than one undertaken by a private company rather than a school: the efforts of the search engine company Google to digitize and index books housed in five major research libraries. (Harvard University is one of the five libraries participating in the program; the others are Stanford University, Oxford University, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library). As the company explains it, the “ultimate goal” of the Google Library Project is “to work with publishers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers.” Google users will be able to enter search terms that would yield “snippets” of a few sentences from books still protected by copyright and the entire book if it is in the public domain. Google believes that such limited quotation is legal as a fair use emphasizes that rights holders can elect to have copyrighted books removed from the database.

Education – the means by which young people learn the skills necessary to succeed in their place and time – is diverging from schooling. Media-literacy-wise, education is happening now after school and on weekends and when the teacher isn’t looking, in the SMS messages, My Space pages, blog posts, podcasts, video blogs that technology-equipped digital natives exchange among themselves. This population is both self-guided and in need of guidance, and although a willingness to learn new media by point-and-click exploration might come naturally to today’s student cohort, there’s nothing innate about knowing how to apply their skills to the processes of democracy.

We have an opportunity today to make use of the natural enthusiasm of today’s young digital natives for cultural production as well as consumption, to help them learn to use the media production and distribution technologies now available to them to develop a public voice about issues they care about. By showing students how to use Web-based tools and channels to inform publics, advocate positions, contest claims, and organize action around issues that they truly care about, participatory media education can draw them into positive early experiences with citizenship that could influence their civic behavior throughout their lives.

Creation Fantasies in Games

Like all ecologies, game ecologies start with creation. But today’s games represent two paradigms of creation: the process by which the games are created, and the paradigms of creation “encoded” within the games. Much of the cultural criticism of games has focused on their destructiveness, and the possible connections between game and real-world violence. Yet games model processes of creation as well as destruction. Do game “creation fantasies” reinforce or break prevailing myths of creation?

Digital Media and campaigning Political Strategy

Digital media strategies are a crucial component of contemporary political campaigns. Established political elites use database and Internet technologies to raise money, organize volunteers, gather intelligence on voters, and do opposition research. However, they use data mining techniques that outrage privacy advocates and surreptitious technologies that few Internet users understand. Grassroots political actors and average voters build their own digital campaigns, researching public policy options, candidate histories, lobbyist maneuvering, and the finances of big campaigns. I examine the role of digital technologies in the production of contemporary political culture with ethnographic and survey evidence from four election seasons between 1996 and 2002. Democracy is deeper in terms of the diffusion of rich data about political actors, policy options, and the diversity of actors and opinion in the public sphere. Citizenship is thinner in terms of the ease in which people can become politically expressive without being substantively engaged.

Digital Media Distribution Opportunities for the Film Industry Growing Options for Viewing Films

The PC as an entertainment hub is fast becoming a reality with increased processing power combined with a fast broadband connection, connectivity to a variety of displays, and increases in the compression/decompression of high-end audio and video. These new capabilities open up an opportunity and a challenge to film distributors: how to target this new digital entertainment gateway with digital movies and video but not lose control of the content in the process. Already today some estimates say there are as many as 500,000 digital movies being exchanged illegally over the web. How can technology help to bridge the gap between what consumers want (find, acquire, playback and share movies online) and what the film industry wants (secure content, business models that work, a great consumer experience)?

Advancements in digital media technology are opening up new distribution opportunities for the film industry. In order to take advantage of these new opportunities the film industry requires the ability to secure valuable assets, deliver them to customers and ensure a high quality playback experience on par with other playback options such as watching a DVD in a home theater or a pay-per-view movie on cable. Technology such as Windows Media 9 Series is being developed to meet those requirements and open up new distribution options.

Internet Distribution

The advancements in Internet digital media distribution have happened so quickly. The first generation of streaming came online around 1994 with the first upsurge in Internet usage. This experience was audio only and bad quality audio at that. But the potential was realized by technology pioneers and teams of developers worked to get higher quality into the small file sizes needed to be able to transport the data in a stream in real-time to the user. The second generation of streaming is what we’re familiar with now. Good audio quality in reasonable file size and acceptable video quality when played back in a small window. The second generation of digital media streaming also introduced digital rights management, the ability to secure content and associate it with licenses that authorized the playback.

The third generation of digital media on the Internet is where Microsoft is now focusing development efforts. This new technology will meet the requirements of the film industry in the following areas: Security – The third generation will include more robust digital rights management solutions to secure the delivery of digital media. Quality – The consumer needs to have a high quality experience, similar to what they’re used to getting when watching movies at home on TV both in the video quality and in the quality of the delivery. Improved economics – With technology providers like Microsoft focusing on creating digital rights management technology to secure the content and building the technology to deliver a high quality consumer experience, the film industry can focus their efforts on creating business models for distributing content online.

Windows Media 9 Series was built around these requirements and includes some new features that directly impact these areas.

No More Buffering Delays

A new feature in Windows Media 9 Series called Fast Streaming delivers an “instant-on” streaming experience for broadband users, effectively eliminating the buffering delays that consumers experience with streaming video today and offering a more TV-like viewing experience with the ability to quickly channel surf around video content on the web. This also eliminates the buffering users get when an ad is inserted into a video stream. Fast Streaming also automatically optimizes the delivery of streaming audio and video to take advantage of the full bandwidth available to the user, which vastly reduces or eliminates the impact of congestion on the Web for broadband users.

High Quality Audio and Video

Codec improvement is an ongoing process. The new Windows Media 9 Series audio and video codecs improve quality approximately 20% without increasing the file size. This means online film providers can either increase their current quality levels or decrease their current bandwidth costs by switching to the new codecs. Combining Fast Streaming with the new audio and video codecs brings a greatly improved online video experience to consumers and makes online distribution of films via video on demand services even more attractive to consumers and film distributors.

Film Distribution on CDs and DVDs

Next generation DVD players are being developed to support the playback of more than the standard MPEG2 DVD format. This year at CES Microsoft announced that several leading DVD player manufacturers will be supporting Windows Media Audio on their DVD players this year with support for Windows Media Video not far behind. These manufacturers include Panasonic, Toshiba, Shinco and Apex and make up 99% of the DVD player industry. The advantages to using a format like Windows Media on a DVD is that the increased compression efficiency means the DVDs can hold more movies, up to 4 on a single DVD, and still provide a high quality playback experience. Many PCs including PCs shipping with Windows XP are capable of playing back DVDs which broaden the DVD viewing options . Alternatively some film distributors are selling single movies on a CD. A two hour movie encoded at 750 kilobit per second easily fits onto a standard CD offering an inexpensive movie distribution option. Digital rights management works on CDs and DVDs too. Users simply pop in the protected content and either go online to acquire the license, or with some devices the license is acquired off of the CD or DVD itself.

Theater Experiences

Technology is helping tomorrow’s theaters overcome some of the challenges that are squeezing the profitably from theater exhibition today. Some of those challenges include:

The Challenge

High Distribution Costs – The cost of sending films out to theaters across the country and around the world is fixed today based on the cost of the film prints themselves, anywhere from $1200-2000 per theater. No Security – Distributors have little control over a film once it leaves their facilities. They have to hope that it’s delivered safely to the appropriate theaters and doesn’t fall into the wrong hands or is damaged along the way. Degradation Issues – As a movie is screened it becomes progressively more scratched and dirty, eventually demanding a replacement print. Limited Programming Flexibility – Currently theater owners are only set up to receive 35 mm films. Since the cost of film production is so high there’s little content beyond major independent and studio movies that can afford to take advantage of a theater screening. Inflexible Advertising – Advertisers love advertising in theaters because they have a captive audience. But today’s theater advertising is limited to slide shows and rarely a filmed ad. But again, given the costs of film distribution not many advertisers can afford to send a 35 mm reel to each theater and even if many advertisers did so, the theater owners aren’t equipped to switch from one ad reel to the next.

The Solution

Digital distribution and exhibition of content in tomorrow’s theaters will overcome many of these limitations.

Streamlined Distribution – The distribution process will no longer involve bulky expensive film reels. Films can be sent digitally over the IP network to targeted theaters without ever having to duplicate a 35 mm reel. This streamlined distribution will pave the way for new programming options including concerts, sporting events, distance learning and more. Theater owners can program content quickly and easily, moving content from one auditorium to many, meeting market demand in a way they are currently unable to.

Integrated Digital Rights Management – Digital theater content will be secured before it ever leaves the content owners facility. DRM will enable tracking and license serving so theaters and content owners know exactly when and where the content is accessed.

Digital Preservation – The one thousandth time a digital movie is screened provides the same quality as the first time. There is no breakdown in the digital file as there is with film.

Demographically targeted advertising – Digital ads can be served from one location and targeted to specific theaters based on content being shown in that theater to a particular demographic. The benefits of moving to digital distribution to theaters are clear. The costs for theater owners have been historically very to purchase the digital projectors and other equipment but some smaller theaters are finding that they can begin to achieve some of the benefits of digital cinema with off the shelf hardware and software. Recently theaters in Seattle and Dallas completed digital screenings of the critically acclaimed independent film “Wendigo.” Using a standard Windows-based workstation, Windows Media for the encoding, deliver and playback, and a DLP projector, the theater owners delivered high quality screenings. Customers were unable to tell that they were not watching a 35 mm film print. Although a digital screening as described above isn’t something that would meet the requirements of a major blockbuster it is a great option for theaters interested in delivering independent and alternative content geared to specific audiences.

Conclusions

Technology is changing the rules of the film industry just as it did for the music industry. With the growing interest from consumers to get movies and video content in different ways with different options, filmmakers and distributors are turning to technology to meet their demands. New technology like Windows Media 9 Series strives to achieve higher quality, greater efficiency, and greater audience reach all while driving down costs. All of these benefits open up new distribution opportunities to the film industry.

The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.