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

The advent of the computer and the subsequent emergence of the much broader and more widely distributed digital technologies (the work of the tool makers) produced platforms capable of the design, development, storage, and sharing of vast quantities of textual, audio, and visual information (the work of the tool users) and permit the ready search, adaptation, use, and distribution of this content. Until the early part of the twenty-first century, commercial attention focused on developing digital capacity, putting computers and other digital tools in as many hands as possible, and improving the technological backbone (security, dependability, maintenance, upgrading, and expansion capacity) of the personal, corporate, national, and international digital systems. Beginning in the early years of the twenty-first century, the balance started to shift from digital technologies to digital content, from tool makers to tool users as described earlier, with related requirements for changes in national innovation systems.

In the last decade, digital content has emerged as a crucial element in the development of digital economies and digital societies and as a test of the flexibility of national innovation strategies. The digital media/digital content sector does not, in the main, follow standard manufacturing structures, which emphasize industrial processes, large-scale operations, and the production of physical products. Instead, the field emphasizes creativity, design, art, and digital mediation. Commercial operations tend to be smaller rather than larger, corporate arrangements are fluid, and top priority is assigned to the maintenance and development of creative personnel. Markets are driven by cultural and entertainment preferences rather than standard retail and industrial requirements.

There is no uniform understanding of what is meant by digital media. To technologists, it refers quite narrowly to computers and the various means of connectivity—cable, fiber optic, and wireless—that have enabled the stunning transformation of modern life. To creative folks, digital media refers to the digital production and digital delivery of content—pictures, stories, images, services, television, educational products, and the like. In the latter formulation, technology is the tool and content is the substance.