Media reflects human instincts. Just as there is food to eat, a house to live in, and clothes to keep warm or cool, media is the means to satisfy the instinctive human desire for communication. The cave paintings of the Paleolithic era and the text bytes of the digital space are essentially the same. However, their components have changed in form through the ages and history. The 'indentation and covering' in cave paintings became ink on paper, and now it has transformed into bundles of data in digital platforms. With the advent of the AI era, current digital media is donning the clothing of AI, heralding yet another change. Of course, it is still in its early stages.
Currently, the element of AI that legacy media is focusing on is productivity. In content creation, AI will undoubtedly change the media environment. However, that is merely a superficial aspect and is just the 'environmental aspect' of media. The arrival of the AI era holds the potential to change the landscape of the South Korean media market. The key term is 'algorithm'.
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In South Korea, Naver is the Big Brother of media. Whether expressing complaints, rebelling, or pledging absolute loyalty, the absolute power of the media ecosystem that currently governs the media market is Naver. The platform called Naver is a space, and the content that fills that space is the order of algorithms that arranges and exposes this content. To draw an analogy with South Korea, there is a platform space called South Korea, filled with content such as culture, economy, politics, and society, and the laws that maintain this order are Naver's algorithms. Thus, algorithms are the key term of the digital age.
A single algorithm from a portal can overturn the flow of public opinion. The Druking incident is a good example. Their abuse was primitive, but even elite politicians sought the benefits of Naver's algorithm through primitive abuse. The value they sought through the farce of comment manipulation was public opinion manipulation, but cynically speaking, they merely danced on the stage set by Naver's algorithm. If Druking had focused on the algorithm, it would have been more effective to flood the areas of political content exposed on Naver's first page with content that served their purposes rather than dropping comment bombs on each exposed political article. This shows the frightening aspect of algorithms in that it is technically possible. The reason Naver's real-time search function was abolished is also due to these harms. It was possible to publicize issues that were of no interest to many using algorithms.
The Future of Algorithms and Media
Is media any different? To be chosen by algorithms, even so-called mainstream media are pouring out numerous articles. The traffic gained in this process has become a proud asset of media, a means of livelihood, and an indicator of power. As a result, the platform called Naver has now become the official uniform that media must wear, and players without uniforms have reached a point where they cannot play in the game. Regardless of skill, players without a Naver uniform have lost the opportunity to meet the audience in the game.
However, the emergence of AI is bringing about innovation in algorithms. The foundation is not unilateral search and content exposure, but an algorithm unique to AI that understands and provides search intent and purpose. Until now, the same search term has exposed the same content. However, the algorithms of the AI era will expose different content even for the same search term. The numerous press releases generated and accumulated in Naver's news category are arranged according to search logic, and this arrangement order is fixedly exposed regardless of the searcher's intent. This is a unilateral result exposure that does not reflect user needs.
However, if AI algorithms are fully applied, even if 100 people input the two characters 'Samsung', the search results can have 100 different possibilities. The flood of similar press releases will disappear from the media market, and content that satisfies the searcher's satisfaction will be judged as high-quality content by the algorithm. Additionally, to reflect the various searchers' intents and purposes, optimized content that aligns with the searchers' intents and purposes will be exposed at the top rather than the media's value.
Ultimately, in the AI era, uniform press releases will become obsolete, and diverse and specialized content will be exposed at the top. This is just a very small part of the media landscape that will change due to the order of algorithms in the AI era. The AI era will shake the media landscape.
