Klaus Schwab, 2016, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (World Economic Forum), pp.14-26, 47-50, 67-73, 91-104.
This article introduces the concept of the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, which according to the author will soon happen, some are already happening, to change the ways of living of mankind. Unlike the first and second revolutions which mainly changed the ways of producing goods and improved our material life, the fourth revolution, as a further development of the third revolution (Internet), will be digital and change the ways of working and communicating.
The Article first introduces some new technologies like 3D printing and advanced robotics that will lead to and drive the revolution, and then explains a concept called ‘human cloud’ which I’m especially interested in because I think this is pretty much what will happen in the future media industry. As the author said, ‘a virtual cloud of aspiring workers located anywhere in the world… Where providers of labour are no longer the employees in traditional sense but rather independent workers who perform specific tasks.’ (pp.48), will become the new working mode of media industry.
Nowadays, media are strongly connected with the Internet, millions of digital contents like video, photo and even social media are produced and shared online. Although films and TVs are still a big part of media industry, but will it be able to stay away from the rapid changes led by the revolution? I don’t think so. Of Course many people still like to go to cinema and watch shows on TV, but the revolutionary technologies will eventually change the way and it is inevitable. As a result, when those technologies change the way of people using media and most things are online or on the cloud, we as media workers would have to adapt ourselves to the new working mode mentioned above.