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

For the purposes of this book, digital media refers to the transmission of information (text, audio, images) in digital format, including through computers and digital devices, the Internet, and World Wide Web and via wireless systems. The digital economy describes the commercial activities associated with the production of hardware and software, digital infrastructure (cabling, servers, switching devices), and digital content/digital media. The digital economy also incorporates the legal, policy, and regulatory systems implemented at the regional, national, and international level to manage and regulate the sector. The digital sector, therefore, combines all these core elements: the tools, the content, and the political framework within which digital media operates. A brief overview of the nature of the digital media environment illustrates this point.

Digital Infrastructure

East Asia moved slowly in building the technological backbone for the digital age.¹⁵ The digital revolution was a classic North American/Western–driven commercial innovation. The Internet spread quickly from its American base but remained solidly rooted in the United States. China was the most resistant, maintaining an impressive firewall against international content and commerce. Japan rejected early academic requests for access to the global Internet and seemed determined to stall the expansion of the digital economy. Belatedly, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan connected to the global Internet, with investors and government devoting hundreds of millions of dollars to the formidable cost of laying cable across the Pacific and around and across Asia. (Interestingly, investors are currently exploring the feasibility of laying cable through the Northwest Passage through Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, an ice-covered route that is 6,000 kilometers, or 3,750 miles, shorter than the other available lines.¹⁶) By 2011, much of East Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the major urban centers in China) had world-class Internet connections, extensive wireless capabilities, and highly competitive rates for personal and commercial use.¹⁷