blurred lines

From The Korea Times

The advent of the multimedia era has broken down the exclusivity of the news reporting market, long dominated by terrestrial broadcasters and newspapers.

Now, such outlets as portals, cable television and online newspapers are taking up the role of news providers. Individual bloggers and companies are also joining the trend, using their homepages as a means to distribute information. Even President Roh Moo-hyun this week opened a blog on the nation’s three separate Internet portals. The presidential spokesman said the blog would provide news reports on the office ``directly’’ to Internet users.

The trend shows a gradually blurring division between news producers and consumers. Theoretically, it means everybody can become both. Kwon Ki-duk, researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute, assessed that the culture has created a new ``value chain’’ on how a news item is consumed and (re)produced.