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Visiting scholar predicts cyborg future
A visiting South Korean professor who specialises in mass communication has been surprised by the influence of American programming on Australian TV.
Professor Joung-Soon Park from Kyungpook National University (KNU) is spending six months at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
Still settling into her Dicky Beach home on her first trip to Australia, she said she would like to see more variety, local content and in-depth news analysis on our free-to-air channels.
“Television is such an effective form of communication and Americanisation is okay, but you’re Australians and should distinguish yourselves from America,” said the Professor, who lived in the US for six years while doing her PhD.
Professor Park said the future of mass media was exciting and frightening: “Within 10 years every form of communication will be in your hand, literally.”
She said all communications would become available in handheld mobile phones. Then they would be contained in computer chips and inserted under the human skin, in hands and even brains.
“There will be no more evolution, only artificial evolution as we become human cyborgs,” she said, adding that Korean technological research in the area was advancing rapidly.
Professor Park is also writing a book to follow up her first, ‘Media Semiotics’, an early edition of which won the Journalism Authorship Award in Korea in 1996.
USC Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Dean Professor Pam Dyer said she expected fruitful research collaborations to stem from the visit. It is part of an ongoing academic and student exchange program between KNU and USC.
Professor Park said she was particularly grateful for the support of Professor Dyer, Lecturer Dr Lisa Chandler and Associate Professor Stephen Lamble.
– Julie Gatehouse