Message map for communicating differences between digital and analog signals

Pre-Event Risk Communication Map for Digital Signals

Stakeholder: Public and Media

Question or Concern: How is a digital signal different from analog signal?

Key Message 1:Digital has become the common choice for today's audio and video formats.

Key Message 2:Digital media is more compatible with many electronic devices used on daily basis's.

Supporting Fact 1-1:Analog recordings deteriorate quickly from one duplication to another.

Key Message 3:Analog cannot be natively edited by a PC editing system. It must be converted to digital, which is time consuming and creates further loss of quality.

Supporting Fact 1-2:Digital is compact and maintains high quality pictures and sound over repeated duplications.

Supporting Fact 1-3:The amount of data in the world is increasing - large portion of this comes from the interactions over mobile devices being used by people in the developing world, making digital media increasingly popular.

Supporting Fact 2-1:Analog systems record light and sound as electrical signals.

Supporting Fact 2-3:Digital systems record light and sound as binary codes using 1’s and 0’s electrical signals. The electronics pulses are On or Off creating the binary code.

Supporting Fact 2-2:Analog devices read the media, such as tapes or records, by scanning the physical data off the media.

Supporting Fact 3-1:Devices such as hard drives, CD recorders, and Mini DV camcorders are digital devices, and therefore record data digitally. VCRs, tape players, and record players are analog devices.

Supporting Fact 3-2:Digital devices, such as computers, make editing and reproduction of the information easier and faster.

Supporting Fact 3-3:A digital signal is an estimation of analog data. While digital information is not as exact as analog information, it can be used with other digital devices.