Digital Media in Europe: The Path of Radio and Television into a New Age
Digital Media in Europe: The Path of Radio and Television into a New Age

Summary/Abstract: This chapter concentrates on the process of the digitalisation of the conventional broadcasting media: radio and television in Europe. In technical terms, digitalisation refers to the transformation of communication technologies from an analogue to a binary logic. Digital may he seen as a synonym for “sampled, quantified, and presented in binary characters”; digital broadcasting refers to the transmission of digitised audio, video, and auxiliary information as data signals (Reimers 2005: 1). One might say that the logic of the computer, which always worked digitally, is gradually taking over all aspects of the production, distribution, consumption, and storing of broadcast messages. What sounds like a purely technical process has strong effects on all aspects of the media, including politics and economics, the production process itself, as well as programme content.

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