Some Historical Perspective--the 1980s

Many observers of South Korea's telecommunications networks and technology today fail to grasp the historical antecedents that led to this situation. To do so, it is necessary to recall the 1970s, when lack of basic telephone service was one of the major social problems in the country. Then, during the period from 1980 to 1987, the government and industry implemented a long-term plan to revitalize the electronics industry. In three critical areas, this plan laid the foundation for the South Korean economy that we observe today. First, in a highly controversial move, the government decided to implement color television broadcasting and to encourage the manufacture of color television sets. By 1980, more than 100 other countries in the world were already broadcasting in color, but former President Park Chung Hee had opposed its introduction in Korea. The electronics sector suffered because Korean companies that manufactured black-and-white television sets were simply manufacturing the boxes and importing all of the components. Contrast that situation to today when Korean companies lead the world in exports of flat panel color displays and television sets. Second, South Korea decided that it needed to develop the capacity to manufacture semiconductors, the raw materials with which many of today's electronic devices are built. This project succeeded and the nation now leads the world in manufacture of DRAM memory chips, certain categories of flash memory and is a major player in semiconductors. Third, Korea focused on developing the ability to manufacture its own switching systems. The success of the TDX project meant that the nation would be able to manufacture these critical components of telecommunications networks and thereby not only solve its desperate backlog in telephone subscriptions, but also modernize its network and export network technologies around the world. Without its major successes in these three areas, there is no way to imagine the highly networked information environment that exists in South Korea today.

My Interest in Korea's Information Society: II

In his classic 1950s study of American perceptions of China and India Scratches on our Minds, Harold Isaacs noted that "Vagueness about Asia has been until now the natural condition even of the educated American." His study was motivated by the apparent tendency of Americans, including policymakers, to view the world with emphasis on Europe, despite the obvious importance of Asia in America's emergence as a major world power. As I have written elsewhere, Korea illustrates the persistence of such tendencies. After living in Korea for two years as a young (early twenties) Peace Corps Volunteer, the lack of attention to Korea by the mainstream U.S. media became a matter of concern. When I began researching television coverage of international affairs for my doctoral dissertation at Stanford in the late 1970s it became clear that Korea's status in the American media was similar to that of many other developing nations. It appeared in the news only when there was a crisis to discuss. Other than that it was hardly covered at all. These empirical findings are all documented in my book, Television's Window on the World. Even in May of 1980, when the Kwangju uprising shook Korean politics to its core, the American television networks and other mass media devoted only a minimal amount of attention to Korea. (See my "Quiet Diplomacy in a Television Era: The Media and U.S. Policy Toward The Republic of Korea") They were preoccupied, as was the U.S. government, with the long, drawn out Iran hostage crisis. The Kwangju story never led a network television newscast. The State Department in Washington and the White House under Jimmy Carter never held a press conference. As a result, the television networks and the other major media didn't have the incentive of a press briefing in Washington D.C. to cover the Kwangju uprising. Over a decade later, in the early 1990's, I began to conduct research on the remarkable changes in Korean telecommunications during the 1980s. They constituted a truly amazing transformation, yet they did not attract the international attention they deserved until much later, after Korea itself had become an active member of both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). Even in the late 1990s and the early years of this century, the media seemed to have great difficulty in reporting South Korea's world leadership in broadband internet infrastructure and usage. I attribute this lag in international recognition of South Korea's accomplishments to the general patterns of coverage that were well-established over the years in television and the mainstream press. Although South Korea is now receiving well-deserved press attention, much of that is because of North Korea's nuclear weapons development, the six-party talks and related topics. The information revolution and the new information society evolving on the Korean peninsula, although attracting attention, are hardly given their due. Nor, for that matter, is the importance of the digital divide in Korea. The Korean peninsula, which was divided as a vestige of the Cold War, is now the world's most poignant and extreme example of a digital and communications divide. Vagueness and misunderstanding of Korea persist in the United States and other parts of the world. One purpose of this blog will be to call attention to that phenomenon and to add context and clarity whenever possible.

My Interest in Korea's Information Society: 1

I first set foot on Korean soil in February of 1971, arriving at Kimpo Airport in Seoul as an American Peace Corps Volunteer. Our group, designated as K-16, came to teach English at universities and colleges around the country. I was assigned to the English Education Department of Kangwon National University in Chuncheon. Among the many things I learned in two years of life in Korea was that telephone service and telecommunications in general were primitive. Simply making a long-distance call to Seoul required a walk from the building housing English Education to the main administration building, where we would be permitted to use a black telephone in a certain Dean’s office. During my two years with the Peace Corps I heard so many Koreans shouting into telephone receivers that I initially thought it was a cultural trait, rather than the result of such poor voice quality over the existing lines. All of this would soon change. During the 1980s Korea achieved a revolution in telecommunications that caught the attention of the industry worldwide and forever changed the quality of life for South Korea’s citizens. The story of that revolution became the subject of my book, The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995. I have been intensely interested in Korea’s subsequent efforts to build an information society which have thrust it into a leading role internationally and at the same time have rendered my book an historical document. Therefore, I am now working on a second edition with the ambitious goal of trying to provide a faithful and comprehensive account of recent developments in South Korea. For information on my background you may consult my personal website, which is basically an electronic resume. http://www.jamesflarson.com For my thoughts on Korea’s telecommunications industry and its rapidly advancing information society, check this blog on an occasional basis.