Media is a message

미디어는 메시지다 

‘Media is a message’ told M. McLuhan. As he said, Media is not just a ‘value independent’ tool that we can utilize, but poses a specific direction where whole society should go. It makes irreversible and profound changes.

When a press came out and met paper which was born at china, what did happen? First there came scholars who were not noble nor cleric but carried knowledges that were once only transmitted from cleric to cleric or from noble to noble. Then it gave birth to great citizen.

More dramatic change was brought by Television. As we call it, it was a ‘Mass’ Media. Before it came, there wasn’t a Mass. Mass media was born first, then there’s a Mass . After the Mass media, people from all over the world thought about the same subject, saw the same news, wore the same fashion. Beatles, Disco and even the handsome and cool looking Kennedy family were the sons and daughters of it. Those who listen Radio and watch TV are what we call ‘Mass’.

Then as we all see now, there’s Internet. TV boasts hundreds of channels, Internet has millions of billions of faces. Most of all, unlike other one-way mass media, Internet is interactive. ‘Candle fire’ protest in Korea shows that now there are even more profound changes going on.

And the change comes even cascade style. What we saw now is ‘Convergence’. We can’t tell what’s mobile phone and what’s mobile TV. What’s phone and what’s camera, what’s TV station and what’s notebook with camcorder in it, what’s just internet video services and what’s broadcasting station. Welcome to the world of ‘Convergence’.

It’s very timely for ITTIMES to feature ‘Convergence’, especially here in Seoul, the Mecca of new media convergence. We all hope we could get some inspiration from the feature.