"Videorecorders and cassettes have spread all over the world and are already no longer regarded as products of the new technologies. Cable television is making massive strides and is often enhanced by its interactive functions. Pay television is gradually gaining a foothold, while receivers are the ... subject of advanced research into such features as high-definition television, flat screens and so on. Programme manufacturing techniques are coming increasingly to integrate informatics with, for example, the introduction of electronic montage and synthetic images. The same developments are affecting the written media, right through from the entering of text on the word-processor keyboard to the computer-assisted ‘desk-top’ end-product. In short, the media system has been radically transformed through the emergence of new methods of production, transmission and reception. The penetration of informatics into all sectors of communication is giving rise to considerable technological confusion and the dividmg lines between technical systems are becoming increasingly blurred. On the threshold of the year 2000, technological advances are being made at top speed and the current progress is only the forerunner of even greater upheavals, what with the arrival, in the not so remote future, of fifth-generation computers, artificial intelligence, expert systems and natural language. This rapid overview of the main innovations which have infiltrated the field of communication make it possible to pinpoint what we commonly understand by new technologies. Their novelty lies not so much in the broadening of the scope of the means of communication as in the appearance of a new technical content, through the integration of informatics, inter-active approaches, and soon, which caters for a different way of thinking. The technical principles behind these facilities are themselves instrumental in conferring an original and unprecedented value on them. [...] Indeed, the purpose of this document is to present a synoptic view of the work done by Unesco on this subject. It describes the general background to the research in which that international organization has engaged in a number of the world’s regions and sets out the findings emerging from the studies undertaken. This exercise also traces in broad outline the large number of studies made outside Unesco’s own programme, examines the main trends in the studies being developed at the international level and identifies the strong points and shortcomings of the research with a view to putting forward a number of recommendations for Unesco’s future programmes. Accordingly, the idea is to tackle the main research topics and issues raised by the impact of the new technologies through an interdisciplinary approach." (Introduction, pages 7-8) more