Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow of 'The Media Today'
Baek, Byoung-kyu (Media Onul)
'Media Today' is the specialized media critic issued by the National Trade Union of the Press'. Issued weekly with 12 pages, and the price is 1.000 won a volume(the price of a year subscription is 40,000won).
The scopes which 'Media Today' deal with is including the comprehensive phenomena of the press, if concretely devided, they are the censor and crictics of the govermental press policy, the critics of media program, the watching on the press condition eg the media watch, and the grasp of the trend of the press industry, the press market. The new communication method to which is attended with the development of the computer technology, namely the new media's trend is the main interesting field of 'Media Today'.
The establisment of the 'Media Today' was the result by the press workers' movement burgeoning in the democratized political space by the struggle for the democracy in 1987. National Confederation of the Press Trade Union built in 1988 made the important decision on 27, September in 1994. It rendered 'The Press Trade Union'(weekly, 4 pages) which isseud as the organization's journal, into 'Media Today'. The intention of Such decision was the extention of the solidarity for the freedom of the press and the fair report that is one of the roles of the Press Trade Union from the inside of the press into the outside. It included the intention to break through the plight of the press workers' movement
At that time, press unions' movements faced the big difficulty according to the competition intensified between the press companies. The intensified competition including the increasing the pages and the competition of the audience rating not only exacerbated the labor condition but also made the press workers' movement be enmeshed in the egoism for their own company which would result the individualization and fragmentation. It was the suffers. The action for the fair report by the each press union was also shrunk.
The Kim's goverment began to intervene into the press obviously, and the whole society was conservatized. In this atmosphere, the press not controlled the turning to the right but showed the incliantion apparantly lealing the rightist tendency.
The decision which The central committee of the Conferderation of the Press Trade Unions made is interpreted as the attempt to break through such difficutl condition through 'the press movement with people'. It was the plan to watch the press and give a pressure to the unfair report from the people through widening and reforming the 'The Press Trade Unions' that had functioned as the watchman in the inside of the press into 'the popular specialized media magazine.
The Press Trade Union, on 1. october in 1994 showed the background of the decision to found 'Media Today' as below.
"Changing The Press Trade Union into the specialized media magazine is the new experiment of the Korean press and the declaration of the second founding. The essence of our decision is that we will overcome the limit of the press and consider to solve the distorted condition of the Korean press with people in the nationwide. (With revealing the distorted condition and the fact of the unfair report, and the ashamed part of the press) The meaning of the Changing is to improve the condition of the press through the popular pressur."
This article alos said that they expect the function of the social watch on the unfair report to be widened with reforming into the specialized media magazine. And they evaluated that such expectation depend on the success of 'the new media' to root into the population.
September in 1994, since the decision of the central committee, through the prepatory process for 8 months 'the new media', The Media Today was showed on 10. May in 1996. The issue of The Media Today is the burden of the finance on Conferderation of the Press Trade Union. Untill now, 40-50% of the union dues is input on the making cost of The Media Today.
Recollecting the cause of the founding, "the monitoring on the press with people', we estimate ourseves that The Media Today in now is the half success. The founding of The Media Today itself give impact to the press both inside and outside, have played the role to inspire the social interest about the unfair report and the distorted condition of the press. First, the fact that the information that had circulated only in the press as the ashamed parts of the press and the distorted machanism of the press was opened to the public was the big impact to everyone.
In the managerial aspect, it is the success as the expeiment to some degree that The Media Today became to have the financial basis thanks to aide of the Conferderation of Press Trade Union and the income by itself. But it is different from the firts plan.
But in fact we have the difficulty in the grasp of the popularity, the intention to the alternative media and the contents of the manage. Most of all, with respect to 'the watching action on the press with people', the attempt to enter the press market has the obvious limit. It is not only because of the distorted structure of the press market including the closed and rigid street stand selling market, but because of failure of the occupation of the popular readers to the extent to support the mamage. This is assignment to solve until now. Yet, the majority of the main readers is in the press. Though the readers in the main goverment and public offices, companies, citizens, social and workers' movements groups and the groups related to the press are increasing, through the street stand selling and the subscription are short. The occupation of the popularity 'with people' had disputed intensively as to the direction of the edit and the structure of the pages. The different two opinion had been argued. One is the argument that shoul identify itself as the specialized media magazine, the other is the opinion that should widen the horizon as the alternative magazine.
With this controversy from the founding, The Media Today that started with 12 pages begna to be interested in the various field, such as politics, economics and labor in order to reinforce itself as the alternative media increasing the pages into 16 on January in 1996. This attempt, however, had been frustrated, and pages had been decreased into 12 because of the failure of the adjustment of the different view in itself and so on. Only the labor part having had separate pages at that time is remaining with covering staff to some extent. But it is also have the problems, relation to other parts and the limit on specializing the itself as the labor pages of The Media Today.
The problems on the occupation of the popularity with The Media Today's identity and the management is the controversial points until now. Whether The Media Today will identify itself with the specialized magazine or the popularity, it is clear that The Media Today should consolidate the influence on the people with the occupation of the readers. It is the desperate task in management and we must try to accomplish this task permanantly. But the occupation of the popularity link to the financial problem seems to have effect on The Media Today's future with its position and intention.
Korean press depends on the income of the advertisement. It is the pervasive phenomena. But it is the problem that The Media Today also depends on the advertesement. It may do harm the independence. Until now thoug this depedence didn't influence on the direction of the edit and the independence, sooner or later will come big problem. If considered Confederation of the Press Trade Union's limit to financial aid, the preparation of the fiance including the enlargement of the selling income is the urgent task for The Media Today's independence.
The apparant limit to the occupation of the popularity reflects the limit of the direction of the edit and the composition of the pages. Whether The Media Today will be become into the specialized media critic magazine or will be widened into the alternative media may be disregarded now. But regardless of that, we can,t overlook the insufficient aspects such as the failure of the popularity. That is linked to the strategy on the readers, on which readers to concentration.
In this point, new media part is not only the central intereting field of The Media Today groping for the media's tomorrow(future), it also has the meaning of the 'media channel to search for the link to people. Builing personal computer communication network or opening the Internet site pushed recently is the alternative grope to overcome the established market of the daily paper.