Week 1 Blog Post for Media in Japan

The socio-cultural impacts of digital transformation

: Ironies for Japanese and South Korean media consumption trends

 

Japan, as the world’s third largest economy has been experiencing ‘technological innovation’ and ‘high-tech manufacturing’ in recent years. However, ironic as it may sound, the country remains stuck in the offline world while trust towards news media is in a serious decline. Also, issues of strict division between online and offline articles/sources are getting more and more serious.

When entering the convenience store in Japan, we see people, regardless of age, standing in front of the ‘printed’ manga, magazines, newspapers going through them. In the eyes of a foreigner living in Japan, the ‘analogue culture’ was unique while it left me with some questions. I became greatly motivated to explore about this topic and make comparative analysis with other cultures.

According to Daisuke Furuta in his seminar, "News media in the Far East in 2021", Japan’s newspaper print circulation is ranked the world’s highest at almost 400 copies per 1,000 people. This reflects the country’s ‘reluctant’ atmosphere towards moving to a digitalized media platform as printed newspapers have thrived to have already settled deeply into the lives and socio-cultural practices of Japanese people. To meet the demands, news organizations are also hesitant to pursue the corresponding digital strategies. Often, digital news organizations are considered as the industry’s outliers with digital subscriptions priced equally to those for the printed.

 

In South Korea, news media provides news paper subscription opportunities both on and offline. Also, if you have missed a certain topic on live news, it is extremely convenient to find online articles versions of it or even the exact same video clips. The searching process takes no more than 2-3 seconds. News media companies provides services on mobile apps for free and even the non-media websites such as online shopping malls display the highlights or weather forecasts for people to be updated with the latest news. This rapidly changing media environment allows for great convenience which effectively generates high accessibility for the public. They would view, analyze, and engage deeply into the political and socio-economic affairs.

Of course, the fast pace of technological advancement within South Korea has side effects such as the lack of consideration for the aging population. Even for the younger generations, increasing number of people in their 20s and 30s are vocalizing their experiences of how the techno-marvels have rather ‘inconvenienced’ their lives. This is a newly emerging ‘technological irony’ within South Korea across all generations.

It is true that the Japanese industries have been putting much effort to consider and embrace readers of the aging population. However, this phenomenon of “print domination” can be worrisome especially in the modern era since the strict divide between online and offline world may generate problems such as people’s indifference in awareness towards social issues and lack of political engagement. Due to the inconvenience associated with collecting/receiving information and also the failures to access those sources, people would rather decide NOT to know about a certain topic when they are placed at a conflicting standpoint of deciding whether they should look it up or not. It is truly an ‘Innovator’s dilemma’ that the Japanese media industries will have to make desirable adjustments for the people and their society.