Digital Media in East Asia: National Innovation and the Transform ...

Chapter 1

Digital Media Defined

Scholars are making impressive efforts to come to terms with the digital revolution, in all of its manifestations. Researchers interested in technological and national innovation understand that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) competitiveness is essential to twenty-first-century economic success.¹ Cultural studies specialists, literary scholars, and those studying the social impact of technology have never had a more widespread and fast-changing canvas for their analyses.² Political scientists seeking to understand how governments respond to economic threats and opportunities have identified a wide-ranging series of policies, initiatives, and strategies designed to capitalize on the new economy potential of the Internet and related technologies.³ Development scholars, in turn, have found much of interest in the efforts by poorer countries to generate economic, social, cultural, and political transitions through investments in digital technologies.⁴

Most regional works on the digital revolution to date have emphasized the technological and infrastructure aspects of the new economy. Indeed, the manner in which governments embraced or resisted the introduction of the Internet has proven to be a critical element in determining the pace and direction of the digital economy on a national and regional basis. At the