"The fourth industrial revolution is a new age in which the physical, digital, and biological industries are becoming ever more closely linked by new technologies. It is going to have a huge impact on almost every industry and economy, but the audiovisual media industry will be particularly affected. The revolution, in which we are all about to be swept up, will transform the way we produce and access media.

"It will change how we can use languages, opening up new means of communication and comprehension. It will mean that audiovisual media can be both globalised and deeply personalised, too. The change that is coming is going to be really empowering. It will result in more choice and more accessibility. It will bring the rapid development of a whole range of new services for those with specific or special needs. It is not just about entertainment but about education, too. This is a very exciting time for the audiovisual media industry, and at Languages and the Media, we’ll be examining the scale of the change and the opportunities it will create."

Ms Stromeyer said that the sheer variety of applicable new technologies has already begun to inspire innovative crowd responses to meet the needs of specific audiences and to exploit the potential for new forms of interaction.

"This is a huge issue," she says. "Human and machine interplay within the audiovisual media industry will be a critical factor in the future. The possibilities are enormous. We’ll be looking at this subject, among many others, at Languages and the Media and considering how exactly it is likely to affect work processes, training, and research."

The Languages and the Media conference and its accompanying exhibition will be attended by participants from all over the world, including broadcasters, language experts, technology players, investors, analysts and entrepreneurs. 

Subjects on the table for discussion at the event include the future of work, new distribution models, language tools, interlingual transfer, quality standards, accessibility, crowd-sourcing, and new media. The full list is available on the conference website. 

The organisers have issued a call for papers and would be delighted to hear from anyone who would like to submit a proposal for a presentation at the conference. The deadline for proposals is 31 March 2018.