At one level it could be seen simply as the electronic media; on-line print, television and radio which extends to include mobile ringtones, video clips and games.

Gaming is a very interesting example as it blends two distinct disciplines; software development and video production. In the gaming industry the two are intimately linked, so, in this case, is software part of digital content?

The answer is “it depends”. In the gaming example then the answer is probably yes but, taking it to the other extreme, the firmware that operates a digital watch is probably not.

Some insight came from the DTI’s Technology Strategy event last week where their ICT stream presentations referred to “Digital Communications”, yet the documents that the DTI have produced on this seem to refer to Telecommunications. It immediately seemed to me a bit bizzare investing taxpayers money in research in Telecommunications as the industry is maturing and is dominated by US, Chinese and Japanese mulitnationals.

In conversation, it became clear that they were really looking to co-ordinate and maximise the value of research into what they called “the upper layers of the protocol stack” i.e. applications and content. At the time it made sense to refer to this as “digital communcations”, but then I checked the wikipedia entry on protocol stacks and the application layer is of course things like HTTP!

Confused?….. You will be

However, using “Digital Communications” as a broad term to to describe the combination of software and content that “new media” has become, works for me. In the 21st century knowledge is communicated between people in digital form through content and delivered using software over the telecoms infrastructure.

My only reservation is perhaps the term still too broad and ill-defined?