Anne Friedberg The end of Cinema: Multimedia and Technological Change

Anne Friedberg The end of Cinema: Multimedia and Technological Change.

I found the piece interesting. Friedberg discusses technologies that evolved between the 70s, 80s and onward. She explains how following cinema screen images moved in to the home by way of TV followed by Video then the Computer. She covers humanist interpretations and technical accounts of how for example the use of remote control was the beginning of an interactive revolution allowing the end user/reader for the first time to control their viewing environment. When we consider how interactive our environment has become via Mobile phones, Cable, TV, DVD, Interactive media, Internet, PC, Gaming consuls, CD Rom and more, we have certainly made major developments in terms of the amount of control the end-user currently enjoys.

She discuses how over time various technologies (e.g. beatamex, VCR) were tried and tested at massive expense through scientific endeavours and involving Giant world companies. Eventually leading to industrial standards.

Ironically I thought, copyright issues relating to VCR copying are introduced and Friedberg discusses a 1884 court battle between Disney and Sony where the court concluded that it is not the device that was actually breaching copyright laws.

Friedberg has accumulated an equally impressive range of information regarding marketing and business issues relating to cinema, the development of rental markets and home viewing and concludes the big screen remains a hugely profitable industry.


Reference Wikipedia
Anne Friedberg is Chair of the Critical Studies Division in the School of Cinematic Arts at the university of southern California. An author, historian and theorist of modern media culture, Professor Friedberg received her PhD. in Cinema Studies from NYU. She was on the faculty of Film and Media Studies at UC, UC Irvine where she was the principal architect for a new interdisciplinary PhD program in Visual Studies and the founding director and programmer of UCI's Film and Video Center. In 2003, she joined the USC faculty, where she has been instrumental in the creation of the Visual Studies Graduate Certificate.