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AbstractThe Concept of Audience Welfare in the Age of Interactivity
Soo - Young Lee Eun - Hee
Park
As the way of securing the audience welfare, historically, the concept of universal service has been emphasized in the area of telecommunication whereas the concept of public interest has been underlined the area of broadcasting. However, the age of interactivity based on digitalization asks us the new concept of audience welfare. This study focused on finding out the new indicator which should be included to construct the concept of audience welfare in the age of interactivity. By doing this, this study examined how the concept of universal service has been evolved through the Internet service and how Korean broadcasting policies have secured the public interest, especially, diversity, through cable TV. Through this study, the following aspects are revealed: The Internet service has been included as the area of universal service. Traditionally, the universal service based on telephone service underscored only availability and affordability of the service. However, the users’ability for finding out the information which is suitable for their needs has been sunrise in the universal service based on the Internet. It means that audiences’selectivity appears to be one of new indicators in terms of audience welfare in telecommunication. In broadcasting, the Korean cable TV case shows that when the market place of idea is working in the media industry, the idea of diversity has not been secured. For this reason, the government intervention for guaranteeing diversity should be considered. In this regard, the age of interactivity implies the existence of active audiences who could select programs and channels satisfying their needs whatever they use a certain medium. If it is so, enhancing the audience selectivity through providing diverse programs and through cultivating audience needs is the precondition for maintaining audience welfare in the age of interactivity. |
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