Communicating Korea's Telecommunications Accomplishments

In the naming and renaming of government ministries recently, the Ministry of Information and Communication was eliminated and its functions dispersed in three directions. Some of its functions were place in a new ministry, initially given the English name of "Ministry of the Knowledge-based Economy," and quickly changed to "Ministry of Knowledge Economy." Other functions go to the new Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, while still others will go to the new Broadcasting and Communications Commission. So, as matters stand, the terms information and communication, along with their variants, no longer find their place in a Ministry name. The problem here is the public, instantly global message this sends. Put otherwise, it is the challenge of properly "branding" and communicating South Korea's considerable achievements in the field of communications, telecommunications and information society development. Internationally, two aspects of this problem are apparent:

• As Suh Seung-Mo, the chairman of Korea IT SME & Venture Business Association,put it in a January 9, 2008 article in ZDNetKorea, "while competing foreign countries have been establishing IT related government organizations, Korea is likely to go back against this international trend. If so, it will discredit the Korean image of IT superpower that we have built."
• The major international organizations in this field, notably the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have adopted the terminology of "information" and "communication" as well. A glance at the ITU website will see the priority given to the World Summit on the Information Society and to information and communications technology and terminology generally. The OECD website is also loaded with information that uses this terminology. Both organizations, along with other international bodies, are concerned with the digital divide, the internet economy, the growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the shaping of a global information society.

The risk Korea takes in eliminating a ministry that contained both "information" and "communication" in favor of the Knowledge Economy Ministry, is that it it may detract from the nation's efforts to help shape the ongoing international dialogue and detract from the branding of Korea's information society efforts, broadly speaking. Readers internationally will immediately wonder what the new Ministries do and what is the significance of their names. Finally, as readers of this blog will know, I have been making a case that developments in information and communications technology (ICT), represented by Moore's law, underpin the emerging "information age" or "information society." Just as communication is the fundamental human process, ICT is the fundamental source of development in such diverse fields as biology, nanotechnology, medical sciences, energy infrastructure and artificial intelligence, to name a few. The issue of fundamental or basic, versus applied research is important and will be addressed in future posts.

Korea's Growth Engines: Robotics

South Korea's robotics industry may be set to take off and could become an important growth engine for the nation's economy. On February 26, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy announced that a law intended to encourage the development and distribution of intelligent robots had passed the National Assembly. In a 2006 article, the New York Times noted that If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication, which has grouped more than 30 companies, as well as 1,000 scientists from universities and research institutes, under its wing. Some want to move even faster. In December of last year the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) announced that it concluded a contract with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in order to promote the international standardization of network robot. To do so, they plan to organize a specialist group and jointly hold workshops. Although South Korea's current market share in the robotics industry worldwide is small, it appears to have great potential. As Korea.com noted, "Korea’s potential in the robot industry is among the best in the world, armed with highly developed associated industries, such as consumer electronics, automobiles and communication equipment. The country’s superior IT infrastructure and rapid acceptance of new technologies will help boost growth, too." More on this industry in future posts.

English Name Change: Ministry of Knowledge Economy

Apparently a number of people had the same reaction I did to the naming of a new Ministry as the Knowledge-based Economy Ministry. Today, according to Yonhap News, the government has changed the English names of several ministries, including this one. It has now been renamed the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. For purposes of this blog, I'll continue to refer to it as the Knowledge Economy Ministry since the other word order in English seems to beg for insertion of an article, thus calling it the "Ministry of the Knowledge Economy." As noted in my earlier entry, this is not intended as nitpicking about English wording, but rather to point to the larger picture. How will the new English names be received in other countries or in organizations that follow developments in Korea through English-language sources?

Language, Ministry Names and Korea's International Image

Korea.com, an official web portal of the Korean government, announced on Friday January 18 that President-elect Lee Myung-bak’s transition team had unveiled the English names of new ministries to be created as a result of his streamlining of government. According to a team spokesperson, "The transition team’s senior members finalized the official English titles of the new ministries after examining those of foreign countries." He said a new giant organization to be created through the merger of the Commerce, Industry and Energy Ministry with parts of the Information and Communication and Science and Technology ministries will be named the Ministry of Knowledge-based Economy (지식경제부 in Korean). Two observations about this announcement

• 지식, in Korean, can be translated into English as knowledge, knowhow or information. In the U.S., Europe and other parts of the English-speaking world, the concepts of the information economy or information society (정보사회) are more widely used and understood than that of the "knowledge economy." Therefore, one might reasonably ask why it becomes the "Ministry of Knowledge-based Economy" rather than the "Information Economy Ministry."
• Now that South Korea has one of the world's leading economies, any change in the English language, or other language names of its ministries and other key government organizations is like changing a brand name. It has huge value and affects the nation's relations with other countries and international organizations.

Korea's New "Knowledge-Based Economy Ministry"

South Korea's new government under President Lee Myung Bak has created a Knowledge-based Economy Ministry. The new ministry is a product of the previous Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Energy plus some parts from the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Information and Communication. In a related development the government is creating a new Broadcasting-Communications Commission, as an independent body directly under the President. It will consolidate elements of the old Broadcasting Commission with parts of the former Ministry of Information and Communications to regulate both broadcasting and telecommunications. The presidential transition team has promised "epoch regulatory reforms," claiming that Korea is 5-10 years behind other advanced countries in the convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications. The knowledge economy framework formed the basis of a recent case study of the Korean economy by the World Bank and several leading Korean research institutes. That study was publicly released at a June 2006 conference here in Seoul and published in book form last month. Both the Knowledge Economy framework and the reorganization of South Korea's government will be the subject of future posts here. Among other things, the list of recommended government web-sites in the right-hand navigation bar of this blog will change. Along with many others from industry, academia and government, I will try to interpret the significance of these changes.