Global media trends of the last few years have been marked by a transition to digital and web‐based forms. Media technologies have always been subject to evolution, but the current shift does not simply represent a change in technology. Instead, it represents a fundamental paradigm shift and a radical media revolution, with far‐reaching implications for every aspect of global media. Every facet of the media is affected, from theatrical movie projection, to video gaming, to individual music access, to TV production and distribution, to the nature of the book and magazine publishing industries. With lesser‐developed portions of the globe quickly catching up in terms of telecommunications infrastructures and technologies, phenomenal growth in such areas as social media, online commerce, web‐based TV, multiplayer gaming, music streaming, and mobile apps is becoming a fact of life across much of the planet.

Much of this revolution has been fueled by the explosive growth of the Internet, after its beginnings as part of a Cold War attempt to enhance the scientific capability of the United States with implications for defense. Current digital and web‐based media are based on the development of such technological breakthroughs as the personal computer, the tablet, and the smartphone. These are based on such earlier tech innovations as the transistor (US, 1947), the integrated circuit (Germany, 1949), cellular networks (Japan, 1979), and the compact disc (the Netherlands and Japan, 1982).

The switch to digital media involves a fundamental shift from earlier analog media forms. Analog media systems depended on equipment which tended to be expensive to maintain, and analog media content was often expensive and cumbersome to ship and to store. By contrast, digital media tends to be much cheaper to produce, store, and distribute, at least after an initial investment in equipment. In many cases, even the equipment is far cheaper. This has resulted in a heightened form of international media distribution, at the same time that, in some respects, it has heightened the presence of global media piracy.

Still, despite the ease with which a digital media file can be distributed from one country to another by such means as satellite or the Internet, some hurdles to international communication can still be found. Country or world region technical standards, in addition to political, economic, and cultural issues, can hinder or obstruct the flow of media hardware and content from one global region to another. In the days of analog TV, for instance, three primary TV technical standards dominated, those being NTSC (as developed in the US), PAL, and SECAM. Even with digital broadcast television, the world is divided into regions using the incompatible standards known as ATSC (for American Television Systems Committee), DVB, ISDB, and DTMB.

The Internet, however, increasingly creates a level playing field and allows for communication on a scale which is oftentimes directly global in nature, where Internet content is seldom blocked due to underdeveloped technology or other factors. In fact, the World Wide Web (WWW), as a subset of the Internet, was created to be an international and multi‐platform communication system, capable of ignoring national boundaries and differences in national technology standards.

The emergence of ebooks and digital publishing of newspapers and magazines not only changed consumer habits, but overturned traditional business models in the publishing industry. The switch to digital theatrical film projection has impacted which films can be shown in so‐called “arthouse” theaters which offer obscure and foreign titles. The release of small, portable, and even handheld cameras with theatrical film capabilities has revolutionized filmmaking in developing portions of the world.

Distribution of films, software, and electronic games has been largely transformed from a disk‐based process to one which is online, a change which has radically impacted some brick‐and‐mortar retailers like American‐based Walmart. The growth of “cord cutting” and various forms of web‐based TV options has meant that audience habits are largely shifting from linear (actual live or so‐called “live” schedule‐based) TV to VOD (video on demand) services.

These are just a few examples of the far‐reaching changes that most of the entire planet is witnessing as the result of a massive transition in global media. That transition is primarily based on two unprecedented developments: (a) growth in the Internet and various forms of web‐based services; and (b) the transition from analog to digital media. These two developments are increasingly intertwined and interdependent. This transition is fully apparent in some areas of the media, but still emerging in others.

In the 1980s, much of the world was rocked by changes in media technology which made it more difficult for national governments to control the inflow of media from other countries. This was the era during which such options as satellite TV and videotapes appeared, oftentimes defying national boundaries. The challenges to existing global media systems that were associated with such developments seem minuscule, however, when compared to implications associated with the digital and web‐based media transition.

The Internet is rapidly increasing its significance as a news medium. As of August 2017, about 50% of Americans reported that TV was their primary news source, while 43% reported that they accessed their news online.¹ To a large extent, online news is accessed via mobile apps, such as the Apple News app, or via social media, such as Twitter. Even news stories which may be disseminated through traditional TV may originate online, or may use photos or video derived from web sources. As discussed in Chapter 6, for example, Storyful, which is owned by News Corp, searches the web for social media video which may be useful to journalists. The company then identifies that material in terms of its location and date, verifies its authenticity, acquires rights, and then sells access to journalists.

The quickly evolving nature of the global Internet demonstrates the complex and ever‐changing nature of its role in world media. Much of the global expansion of the Internet has proceeded alongside development of the global information infrastructure, or GII. The GII is viewed as a network of computer networks which may ultimately link all parts of the planet. Development of the GII is prompted largely by such forces as international banking and the ever‐increasing global nature of commerce.

Global Internet Access

Even where Internet access is available, the extent of web traffic varies enormously. Not surprisingly, the highest traffic in North America is generated in the US. In South America, Brazil takes the lead. The UK finds the highest level of activity in Europe, with usage in Asia dominated by Japan, India, and South Korea, in that order. The highest traffic in Africa is found in South Africa.² As of 2017, about 51% of the world's population was using the Internet, with about 36% using mobile‐based social media.³

Global media discussion in the 1970s and 1980s largely centered around glaring disparities between the “have” vs. the “have not” nations in terms of technology options and media infrastructures. Such differences still exist, but a base level of digital and web‐based options has been appearing with surprising speed in various portions of the world. Not only that, but very recent changes in Internet usage patterns in different parts of the globe have shifted the balance of power in terms of numbers of Internet users by country, with some startling results. Currently, the top countries in terms of numbers of Internet users, as of 2017, are as listed in Table 5.1. Other than the United States, core nations do not top the list.

India's users went from just about five million in 2000 to over 149 million in 2017. Two other countries which have experienced explosive growth in Internet usage over the period from 2000 to 2017 are Nigeria and Bangladesh. The number of Nigerians using the Internet increased from just 200 000 to 98 million during the period, while Bangladesh's users went from 100 000 to nearly 80.5 million.

Nigeria and Bangladesh are now ranked 8th and 10th, respectively, in terms of the world's Internet users; this sets them ahead of Germany, the UK, France, and Italy in that regard. In addition, the countries with the highest penetration rates of Internet use are not countries which dominate world news, politics, and economics. The top five countries in terms of the percentage of the population who are Internet users are, in order, the Falkland Islands, Iceland, Bermuda, Norway, and Sweden.⁴

When comparing nations of the world, however, the state of development of a nation's telecommunication infrastructure does not appear to be the only factor dictating the extent of Internet usage. Germany, for example, has been linked to a pronounced indifference toward social media, evidently not because of the presence or absence of technology, but rather due to cultural factors. The United States and Canada trail behind Sweden, the Netherlands, and Australia in terms of social media usage, while Germany ranks 14th in terms of social media usage “throughout the developed world,” according to a study by the Pew Research Center.⁵

Another surprising facet of Internet use is that although the Internet began in the United States, the US does not dominate in terms of average Internet speeds. In fact, the United States ranks last among the top 10 in terms of the world's top average Internet speeds, according to 2017 figures. Earlier, in 2015 and 2016 rankings, the US did not even enter the top 10. The average Internet speed in South Korea is almost twice as fast as that in the United States.⁶ The average speeds as of 2017 are noted in Table 5.2.

The United States does not lead in terms of the fastest public Wi‐Fi either. In fact, the US ranks 20th in that capacity, with Lithuania topping the list. In the top 10 are, in order, Lithuania, Croatia, Estonia, Ireland, Romania, the UK, Denmark, Hungary, Belgium, and Slovenia, with the United States in the very distant 20th position. The US also does not enter the top five countries in terms of connection speeds using such devices as smartphones or tablets on mobile networks. There, the leading countries are the UK, Belgium, Cyprus, Switzerland, and Germany, in that order.⁷ In one list of the top countries in terms of mobile Internet speeds, the US ranks 28th, and trails behind Greece and Estonia.⁸

Internet access does not always involve use of such media‐connected devices as web streaming devices, game consoles, or smart TVs. Indications suggest that in terms of use of web streaming devices, Apple TV dominates in the US and France, with Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast close behind. Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV reportedly shared about equal popularity in Germany, with Google Chromecast being particularly popular in Spain. All of these devices are US products. At the same time, however, Korea‐based Samsung has been leading in terms of smart TV penetration globally.⁹ In 2018, adults in China were spending about a quarter of their media time on smartphones, just about 1% more than in South Korea, although use of cellphones for voice communication is higher in South Korea than anywhere else in the world.¹⁰

In summary, although the United States conceived of the Internet and formulated its basic parameters, the US does not dominate in terms of such factors as the number of users, Internet connection speed, mobile connection speed, or access to free public Wi‐Fi. The US once played a dominant role in terms of Internet planning and coordination through its involvement in ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, but ICANN's government has passed into the hands of a multinational and multi‐stakeholder community. ICANN had still managed to maintain ties to the US Department of Commerce, but even those ties were severed in 2016.

These sorts of developments, plus such factors as the growing global popularity of short‐form online videos produced by individuals outside of core nations, means that although the US gave birth to the Internet, US dominance has waned considerably.

One way in which the US does still prevail, however, is in terms of the world's most popular search engine, that being US‐headquartered Google. A couple others in the top five, depending on selection criteria, are also US‐based, but slots among the top five are also occupied by Baidu, which is the most popular search engine in China, and Yandex, which is huge in Russia and whose name stands for “Yet Another iNDEXer.” Baidu and Yandex were formed in 2000 and 1997, respectively (Table 5.3).

Global rankings of the most popular websites are to some extent tied to use of these major search engines. Throughout much of the world, Google prevails as not only the top search engine, but also the most popular website. In Russia, however, VK, a social media platform, is the most popular site, while Baidu is the most popular site in China. In several countries, YouTube is the most popular website. In an overall global sense, the five most popular Internet websites are as noted in Table 5.4.

Of the sites listed in Table 5.4, only Baidu originates outside the United States. Reddit, the US‐based social news aggregator, has seen a meteoric rise in popularity, and is now the sixth‐most popular website in the world. As already noted, the top five search engines are listed in Table 5.3. The table has been compiled from lists after eliminating more specialized search engines, such as Internet Archive, LinkedIn, YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, and Pinterest.

No search engine, not even Google, indexes all that much of the web, in terms of its totality. Major search engines like Google only index an estimated 0.03% of the web.¹¹ The rest is contained in what is known as the deep web, also called the invisible web, much of which is found in databases which are private and perhaps behind paywalls.

This factor, coupled with idiosyncrasies of individual browsers, mean that no search engine is going to provide an accurate picture of what the global Internet contains. This also means that the deep web is being used in some parts of the world, where communication about controversial issues may be hindered, to share ideas and plan protests and other activities in ways that discourage eavesdropping by governments.

Some use the Tor browser to access the “dark” web, not necessarily to access what is sometimes viewed as the “eBay for drugs” or for similar purposes, but simply to avoid the watching eye of the government. This means that perhaps only about half of so‐called “onion sites,” or hidden sites, are engaged in illegal activity.¹² Some would say that as much as 60% of the Tor network is innocuous and worth protecting.¹³ France considered blocking Tor after terrorist attacks in 2015. One study, which examined Internet use in 157 countries, found a “clear correlation” between repressive countries and use of the Tor network.¹⁴

Sales have been an increasingly noticeable factor in Google searches, with some pronounced national differences in terms of what sorts of goods and services dominate searches. At the same time, advertising placed by Google has been playing a more prominent role, with concerns that this may have been a primary reason for the search giant's recent switch to a system whereby mobile‐friendly sites are given preferential treatment in search results. The change in priorities is said to be because of shifting online usage patterns, but that shift also further encourages online sales on mobile devices.

Google searches are often accompanied by a request to know the user's location, if Google does not already have access to that information. Until 2017, it was possible for users to go to versions of Google intended for other parts of the world to get a Google‐eye view which is tailor‐made for another world region. Then in 2017 the company decided to always route users to the version of Google for the region in which the user is situated. Google settings can be accessed to choose another world region, but searches will still likely be based on the users' locations as determined by the individual's search history.

Google has been quoted as saying that the change, disabling the ability to search a Google domain for another country, is because one out of five searches is location‐related. What it ignores, however, is that when users indicate a change in domains, this is done as a conscious choice. Whether search history results are wiped out in compliance with Europe's “right to be forgotten” policy is dependent on where the user is physically situated, not on the basis of what country the user chooses in settings.¹⁵ A European court had decided in 2014 that Google needed to remove search histories that were outdated or no longer relevant, upon request. That decision has become known as the “right to be forgotten” decision.

This sort of issue is one reason why DuckDuckGo, headquartered in Pennsylvania, has become yet another major global search engine. DuckDuckGo, which is the default search engine of the Tor browser, bills itself as “the search engine that doesn't track you.”

Concerns on various grounds have also surfaced in different countries in response to the “Street View” option present in Google Maps and Google Earth. Street View photos typically show entire lengths of public streets and roads in a series of overlapping still images. Before complaints, photos in Street View have included such controversial content as a nude woman stepping just barely out her own front door for a moment, individuals leaving strip clubs, and views taken above private fences, walls, and hedges due to the use of an elevated camera.

In parts of Europe, laws came into play which prohibit photographing individuals for public display without their consent, even if on a public street. License plates and human faces are now often blurred in Street View. A related Google scandal concerned the collection of Wi‐Fi data by Google Street View vehicles while they drove around photographing views of streets and roadways.

Even in those countries and regions of the world where the level of technology supports Internet access, permitted access to specific websites and web services varies. In China, for example, access to some of the most popular web‐based forms of social media has been officially blocked for years. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, as well as sites like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

In 2010 Google abandoned efforts to operate its search service in China because of the government's system of filtering out such subjects as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Westerners have chuckled over what is termed the “Great Firewall” of China, while perhaps tens of millions of citizens within China have used virtual private networks, or VPNs, to provide the anonymity necessary to allow access to such social media sites as Facebook and Twitter.

In 2017, however, the Chinese government sought to shut down the use of VPNs almost completely. That new cybersecurity law went into effect on June 1, 2017, amid concerns that it could hinder companies based outside China from conducting business within the country. Under the new measure, VPNs would still be available, but only approved ones, and then only after undergoing an application process. That process involves government monitoring tied to lists of names of users. The three Chinese telecommunications companies, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom, were ordered to remove access to VPNs by February 2018.

Whether the law can effectively be used to shut down all unapproved VPNs is, however, another matter. Still, it may prove difficult to gain access to an unapproved VPN unless a Chinese user travels abroad. In addition, SIM cards in mobile devices have been registered under the user's ID number as of 2017, which makes mobile use of VPNs easy to trace.¹⁶ Recent VPN crackdowns are related to attempts by Chinese president Xi Jinping to protect what he calls the “cyber sovereignty” or “Internet sovereignty” of China from foreign influences.¹⁷

Use of VPNs has enabled dissidents to discuss and to organize via social media in such situations as the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East, as well as the Euromaidan civil unrest in Ukraine which began in 2013. Turkish users relied on VPNs when the government shut down Twitter in 2014. VPNs came into play in Africa in 2016, a year which was referred to as the “year of Internet shutdowns.” At least 11 different African nations had their Internet access hindered during times of protests or elections.¹⁸

In 2016, the Human Rights Council of the United Nations issued a draft resolution noting concern about what it termed “human rights violations and abuses” aimed at individuals “for exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms on the Internet.” The UN affirmed that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression.”¹⁹

The Advent of Digital and Web‐Based Media

A host of technological breakthroughs in the 19th and 20th centuries resulted in the creation of modern electronic mass media. The available media forms, including the telephone, radio, television, and movies, were all analog in nature. This meant that electronic media content created an analogy, or analog representation, of aspects of the real world. Light and dark areas were rendered on motion picture film, for example, to represent visual images. Sound was recorded on records in the form of a continuous record groove. The undulations and hills and valleys of the record groove served as an analogy of actual sound, and allowed for the reproduction of audio which was present in the real world.

Digital technology, by contrast, represents visual and audio content, as well as other forms of media content such as text, in the form of a numerical code. The first major digital mass media format which became successful with the media‐consuming public was the audio CD, or compact disc. CDs record sound by “sampling” the audio which is present during a music performance. Such aspects of that audio as sound frequencies and volume are mathematically measured during the sampling process. In this way, digital recording amounts to collecting data, vast amounts of numerical data. That data is stored in binary code, a system which relies on strings of numbers: ones and zeros.

This represents a fundamental shift in media creation, storage, and delivery. This means that media content can be much more easily, cheaply, and efficiently produced, archived, and distributed. This also means that a media product in digital form can be easily sold or made available in a variety of forms. A TV program which is recorded digitally can readily be offered for web streaming or converted into DVD or Blu‐ray form. This also means that it can be easily copied on an unauthorized basis, if methods of copy protection are circumvented.

The Internet, along with cloud‐based storage and retrieval systems, has developed as a primary means of content, storage, and distribution of media content. In publishing, this has upended business models and traditional practice. Print‐based book publishing had relied on a system largely concerned with warehousing and shipping, as well as return of unsold books to a publisher. Digital publishing eliminates warehousing and shipping costs, as well as the need for a brick‐and‐mortar store. Inventory manages itself. Sales figures are immediate.

The switch to digital and web‐based media means that the media can easily assume new hybrid forms which were never possible with earlier analog media. An example is music streaming. Pandora Radio, for example, is called radio, but it is hardly radio in the traditional sense. Music‐streaming services are based on an aspect of digital media which was hardly present with analog media, that being its interactive nature. The user can create a personalized experience based on personal preferences, something which was never possible with analog radio.

The roots of digital media can be found in historical events in which the US took the lead. Binary language and the basic parameters of digital telecommunication were largely formulated through the pioneering work of Claude Shannon, an engineer and mathematician working for Bell Telephone Labs in the 1940s. It was Shannon who brought electronic communication into contact with binary code, a mathematical system which had been invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1679.

Shannon suggested, based on Leibniz's work, that the most fundamental, irreducible, element of digital communication should be the bit – short for binary digit – and consist of either 1 or 0. Shannon also worked out the mathematically based fundamentals of how binary code could be used for communication and how “noise” (anything which hinders communication) could be minimized.

Once Shannon's concepts were applied to the crude world of early computing, events began to transpire which led to the formation of the Internet. An often‐cited pivotal event was the launching of the Soviet Union's satellite Sputnik, which orbited the earth above the United States in 1957. This prompted concerns about the status of American scientific know‐how compared to that of the USSR. This, in turn, led to the formation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in the US in 1958, charged with accelerating the US scientific knowledge base, with clear military defense potential.

From the start, ARPA appeared to hold two potentially conflicting aims in mind, one being to enhance defense, and the other being to open up technological innovation which could lead to non‐military applications. This seems reflected in the fact that ARPA changed its name to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1972, then back to ARPA in 1993, and then back to DARPA in 1998.

Cold War concerns about the threat of loss of vital computer data in the event of a nuclear attack led to plans for a decentralized network of geographically spaced computers which would be capable of sharing data. This led to formation of ARPANET, an interconnected network of computers which formed the basis for the later Internet.

Initial use was largely military, but eventually the scientific community came onboard, widening not only the scope but also the intent of the fledgling network. Finally, once the National Science Foundation (NSF) became involved as a major user, the nature of ARPANET began to change. The network began to be seen as something potentially much bigger than could be contained within its existing mission and framework.

In the early 1990s, British researcher Tim Berners‐Lee formulated a proposal while working at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. His brainchild was a system using the fledgling Internet to create a vast worldwide information storage, sharing, and retrieval system which he dubbed the World Wide Web.

Despite popular misconceptions, the World Wide Web, or WWW, is not simply another name for the Internet. Instead, it was created as a subset of the Internet, using the Internet for a specialized purpose. That purpose was to be fueled by the availability by the early 1990s of several key elements:

• A computer mouse, as a digital “pointing” device;
• Graphical user interface (GUI) browsers, allowing point‐and click capability;
• Multiplatform communication, allowing for interconnectedness among computers running different operating systems; and
• HTML, or hypertext markup language, a system by which largely text‐based web pages could be constructed which contained links (hyperlinks).

The earlier Internet had enabled users to access single documents which contained no “hypertext,” or web links. The gist of the new system, as envisioned by Berners‐Lee, was that a mouse, coupled with web links provided in web pages, would enable users to point and click in such a way as to navigate not just within a specific document, as with the earlier Internet, but from one part of a document stored on one network server to another part of another document stored on another server. In this way, a vast storehouse of information could be linked together into a “web,” a “worldwide” web, in such a way that, eventually, virtually any topic could be researched in moments.

In 1994, after leaving CERN, Berners‐Lee formed the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an organization which still coordinates Internet standards on an international basis. From the beginning, the W3C was something of an international body, with input from both US and European entities. Since then, W3C offices have been established around the world, including, among other locations, China, Hong Kong, Brazil, Israel, South Korea, Morocco, Australia, and South Africa. The W3C is responsible for establishing standards for the global Internet, such as HTML5, which was adopted in 2014 in part to enable the web to better handle audio and video files.

Internet Cafes and Multiplayer Gaming

Beginning in the 1980s, two Internet‐related developments had explosive impact in much of the world, especially outside of the United States. One was the development of Internet cafes. The other was phenomenal growth in use of computers for online multiplayer gaming. These two developments showed a remarkable degree of overlap, since much Internet cafe usage was and is gaming‐related.

Internet cafes offer customers the use of computers onsite for pay, usually on an hourly basis. The earliest known Internet cafes appeared in South Korea in 1988. They did not spread to the United States until 1991, and then only on a limited basis. The Internet cafe concept spread across much of the globe. In countries with developing economies, they provided a means by which individuals could access the Internet without the need for investing in equipment. Even where and when home access to the Internet becomes common, this factor remains especially a concern in gaming, where particularly high‐end equipment is often viewed as a necessity.

Even where local economies are robust, the cafe can provide a dedicated environment for focus on web use. The use of an Internet cafe, whether that term is used or not, spread quickly as a gaming environment throughout various countries, including South Korea, the Philippines, India, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan. In addition to the term “Internet cafe,” various other terms or labels are applied to such businesses, including “LAN cafes” or “LAN gaming centers,” LAN being short for local area network.

They are also known simply as gaming centers, cybercafes, telecenters, or net cafes. They are known in South Korea as PC bangs, in Indonesia as warnets, in China as net bars or Internet bars, and in the Philippines as computer shops. The presence or lack of food and beverages varies. In Europe, Internet access has, in many cases, been absorbed into traditional cafes. In Japan, they have taken the form of Internet manga cafes, where users read manga (comics) and access the Internet.

In countries like Nigeria and Turkey, where Internet cafes simply provided basic Internet access for email and the like, using basic and inexpensive computers, cafe popularity has fallen off as the prevalence of home access increased. Where cafes specialize in gaming, however, using high‐end equipment and the latest expensive games, they have tended to flourish. That has been the case even where home Internet access is common.

Interconnection of computers for multiplayer gaming had emerged in the United States by the 1970s. Multiplayer gaming in a dedicated environment developed into a far more popular phenomenon in other parts of the world than in the US, however. South Korea has one of the most advanced Internet systems in the world, as well as one of the highest rates of broadband Internet penetration. There, however, the PC bang, which translates as “PC room,” remains popular as a meeting place for young people. There they can hang out with friends, away from parental supervision, while focusing on gaming for very low hourly rates which convert to well under one US dollar per hour. PC bangs also tend to stock plenty of junk food.

Users sometimes take naps at their computers, since some will stay for many hours at a time. The PC bang phenomenon has led to a serious video game addiction problem in South Korea. Cardiopulmonary deaths have been blamed on excessively long Internet cafe gaming sessions which, on occasion, can go on for multiple days with little or no sleep. A young man in Taiwan, for instance, died after gaming in an Internet cafe for three days straight. Another in South Korea died after gaming for three and a half days. These are not isolated instances. Rehabilitation programs for gaming addiction in South Korea have sometimes involved sending young people to rural camps for a time, away from the gaming environment. The addiction phenomenon has also been of concern in China, but to a lesser extent.

In South Korean bangs, large monitors with high‐end gaming computers, offering access to the latest games using a high video frame rate and top Internet speed, make the facilities popular even to those who have computers at home. The most popular games in South Korean facilities are what are termed massively multiplayer online role‐playing games, or MMORPGs, with perhaps over 100 000 simultaneous players across the globe.

After its release in 2016, the most popular game in South Korean PC bangs became Overwatch, published by Blizzard Entertainment, which is based in Irvine, California. This game has largely dethroned League of Legends, formerly the most popular game, which is a product of Los Angeles‐based Riot Games. Blizzard games have dominated in South Korea for decades.

Electronic games in general have been occupying an ever‐increasing place of prominence in global computing. Online gaming has been increasing in popularity while the use of downloaded or boxed games has been decreasing. In global terms, the most lucrative segment of the game industry has been mobile gaming, with cellphone and tablet gaming expected to gain the majority of the global game market by 2020. China is expected to generate about a fourth of global game revenues during the same period, mostly through mobile gaming.²⁰ China's gaming market is dominated primarily by China‐based Tencent and NetEase.

While the US was formerly the world's largest online gaming market, this distinction has passed to China. Tencent is the largest gaming company in terms of revenue, not just in China, but in the world. Tencent acquired Supercell, which is based in Finland and which developed the popular game Clash of Clans. Tencent also is looking to play an increasingly significant role as a source for online video.

Tencent Holdings Limited is a massive multinational corporation based in Shenzhen, China, and is the world's largest investment corporation. Tencent operates services in the areas of major online news and information portals, social media, online payment systems, games, ebooks, online animation, TV streaming, movie streaming, music streaming, eSports, social media (including blogging and video‐based options), artificial intelligence, and Internet radio, in addition to educational services and cloud services. The company also offers apps and software, an online map service, email, and a browser.

NetEase, Tencent's competitor, not also produces popular games, but movies as well. NetEase was formed in 1997, and began by providing Internet services. The company is involved in various other services, such as offering free email. NetEase operates the highly popular game Overwatch in China, in addition to various other popular titles. Since 2014 the company has operated a US branch of NetEase Games, which is headquartered in Guangzhou, China. In 2016 the company was ranked third in the world for highest earning publishing for iOS (Apple's mobile operating system) and Google Play.²¹

Web Streaming

Besides the dominance of Google as a global search engine, another way in which the US still plays a leading global role regarding the Internet is in terms of video‐streaming services. What has traditionally been known as “mass” media, which includes high‐budget television programs and theatrical films, has been largely transitioning toward web‐based forms. To a remarkable extent, US‐based media corporations have had to adjust their programming content and strategy to match the demands and expectations of local markets in various parts of the world, but Hollywood movies and TV programs still enjoy a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Mass media systems are shifting, to at least some extent, from dependence on over‐the‐air broadcast, cable, and satellite modes of home delivery to a focus on web‐based delivery. This means that American content as well as, in some cases, ads promoting American businesses, will continue to proliferate in world media. An example is the web‐delivered services offered by Netflix. In its expansion into Europe, this US‐based company has had to enter into collaborative partnerships with Europe‐based media companies to produce new programming specifically for the European market. At the same time, it remains a US‐based company which does offer a fair amount of US‐produced content.

Even when content offered by US‐based media companies abroad is locally produced, advertising by American businesses may be noticeably present. The Turkish Fox channel, for example, is accessible via broadcast and web delivery. The network's entertainment program content is, for the most part, Turkish content shot in Turkey, with some US‐produced programming overdubbed in Turkish. American‐based advertisers, including Cheetos, Gillette, Fisher‐Price, Arby's, Lipton, Avon, Pepsi, Oral B, and the like, are noticeably present in its commercial breaks and through banner ads which occasionally appear at the bottom of the screen during programming. Such ads appear alongside ample ads for Turkish products and services.

Before web streaming became commonplace, accessing audio or video files via the Internet meant that the entire file had to be downloaded, over a dialup connection, before any part of it could be played. This, of course, prevented use of the web for live programming. Streaming, by contrast, enables the user to watch video or listen to audio while the material is being transmitted. An important pioneer in web streaming in the 1990s was RealNetworks, which offered free software enabling video and audio streaming, even with the dialup Internet then commonly employed. Real audio and video formats were in use for the vast majority of web streaming around the year 2000.

By 2002, however, Flash, a product developed by US‐based Adobe, was becoming increasingly popular for web streaming. In 2010, Apple’s Steve Jobs issued a now‐famous memo titled “Thoughts on Flash,” in which he pointed out what he viewed as severe shortcomings associated with the use of Flash. This, he noted, was especially an issue with regard to battery life on mobile devices such as the iPad, which was introduced the same year. The iPad avoided use of Flash entirely. These developments prompted a global industry shift away from dependence on Adobe Flash for online video and other web content. As already noted, HTML5 was adopted by the W3C in 2014, largely as an alternative to Flash.

The European Parliament has been attempting to eradicate restrictions which prevent users of web‐streaming services from continuing to access those services when crossing national borders within the European Union. Web streaming on a pay basis has not been phenomenally successful in Europe, but its user base is growing. In 2016, about 11% of European households subscribed to some sort of VOD service, a number which was expected to double by 2020. About 54% of this business went to Netflix.²²

Netflix has expanded to much of the planet, although not always through a direct presence. In China, for instance, Netflix supplies some of the programming for the popular iQiyi platform. Even in those countries where a Netflix service is available, programming is typically very different from what is available in the United States, and is based on the user's IP address (computer location).

This is partly due to differences in rights to individual films and programs, which vary from one country to another. This is not just a matter of simply acquiring rights. In some cases, Netflix may own rights to particular content in a certain part of the world, but may have sold those rights to another broadcaster in that area. The number of titles available from Netflix also varies greatly from one country to another.

Access to web‐streamed video content varies, of course, in different parts of the globe. YouTube, owned by Google, reaches over a billion users in around 88 countries. China has blocked the site, however, since 2009. There, the primary online video platforms are Tencent, iQiyi (operated by China's online media giant Baidu, which handles 70% of China's online searches), and Youku Tudou (operated by Alibaba).

Tencent Video was formed in partnership with several British entities, including the BBC, but some of its content comes from American‐based HBO. Baidu's streaming platform iQiyi was developed in partnership with Equity Partners, a private equity investment firm located in Providence, Rhode Island. In addition to a hefty sampling of South Korean films, some of iQiyi's content comes from American suppliers Paramount, Lion's Gate, and Netflix. Youku Tudou was created in 2012 as the result of a merger of two streaming sites, Youku and Tudou. The platform was acquired by Chinese multinational conglomerate Alibaba in 2015. Alibaba operates various web‐based e‐commerce and technology services and, in 2016, became the world's largest retailer, with a presence in more than 200 countries.

Asia has seen a huge growth in live streaming by ordinary individuals who are sometimes depicted as involved in ordinary, mundane activities. This is seen as a way to socialize via smartphones. As a result, the live‐streaming market in China is said to be worth about $5 billion.²³ Such Asian sites as Bigo Live and BeLive attract huge numbers of mostly young users, some of whom simply broadcast their day, while others perform music or offer other forms of entertainment. Apps used for live streaming typically offer some sort of in‐app purchases. Typical Asian users in 2016 spent about 70 cents per app, while Europeans, by comparison, only spent 26 cents. The average user the world over spent about 50 cents.²⁴

In terms of music streaming, worldwide penetration was right at about 25% in 2018, with more revenue being generated in the US than in any other country.²⁵ Although Pandora was the most popular music streaming service in the US in 2018, the service is currently only available in the US. Spotify, which is based in Sweden, is the primary streaming music service in global terms. Other services have arisen to serve primarily certain regions of the world, and have achieved high popularity. Deezer, for instance, is the most popular service in France, despite the high popularity of Spotify throughout the rest of Europe, while MelOn is popular in South Korea.

During 2017, global web streaming of video more than doubled, mostly in the US, followed by Europe and then Asia.²⁶ Disney will launch a streaming video service in 2019, to compete with Netflix. Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019 is widely assumed to be prompted by these plans. Netflix, meanwhile, has expanded into around 130 countries with streaming services. In the UK, major TV entity Sky, which was initially resistant to Netflix intrusion, planned as of early 2018 to allow a Netflix streaming app in Sky's set‐top boxes. At the same time, in 2018 both Comcast and Fox in the US vied to gain a controlling interest in Sky, with the prize eventually going to Comcast.

Other companies are becoming prominent players in video streaming in other parts of the world. In China, the huge media conglomerate Baidu operates iQiyi as a streaming platform, where it operates with no direct competition from Netflix or Amazon. Baidu is heavily involved in artificial intelligence (AI), which could potentially be used in connection with voice‐activated searches for web‐streaming content. Such searches have been commonplace with streaming devices since the mid‐2010s.

Tencent is not just big in gaming but, as already mentioned, the China‐based company is huge in social media, music streaming, and video streaming as well. Tencent Music operates a music‐streaming service which has seen some international expansion. The company entered into deals with Sweden‐based Spotify in 2017 whereby each company traded equity and formed an alliance.

Tencent also invested the same year in Indian‐based Gaana, although the extent of this involvement was not disclosed. Tencent dominated the streaming video market in China by the end of 2017, with net profits of $10.9 billion for the year and with more than 137 million average daily mobile users during the year's fourth quarter. Nearly a billion people were using WeChat, Tencent's messaging service, as 2017 came to a close.²⁷

As of 2017, Tencent maintained a streaming presence in China, India, and the US, the latter through its Spotify involvement. In China, Tencent maintained complete ownership of QQ, Kugou, and Kuwo services, which reach 70% of subscribers in China. At the same time, Tencent was part owner of major India‐based streaming service Gaana, and 10% owner of Spotify.

Various other video‐streaming services are popular in certain regions of the world. Globo Play, for example, is a service of Brazilian TV giant Globo, and competes with TIM (Telecom Italia Mobile) Brazil. Stan is available in Australia, Okko in Russia, and iflix in Malaysia.

Digital Media Piracy and Security

In 2018 claims surfaced which alleged that the private information of 50 million Facebook users was obtained through a controversial data‐harvesting technique. That data, according to Canadian data expert Christopher Wylie, may have influenced the outcome of the US presidential election and, in the UK in 2016, the Brexit referendum.²⁸ The allegations surfaced in the Observer in the UK on March 17, 2018.

Those reports pointed to Global Science Research (GSR), a company which was said to have sold information from Facebook user profiles to Cambridge Analytica. Allegedly, the information was obtained improperly, but without Cambridge Analytica knowing that this was the case. In the US, calls were made for a Senate inquiry which would call for testimony from the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google. This came after claims that foreign agents had used all three of the platforms to influence US elections.

Also in 2018, at the same time as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the European Commission proposed new tax laws to affect such digital media businesses as social media platforms, search engines, online commerce platforms, and online content providers. Proposed was a 3% tax hike to be applied to such companies.

At issue, as a motivating factor behind the tax proposal, was the growing importance of companies which maintained far more of a digital presence than a physical presence in Europe. The charge was that such companies were paying about half the taxes that traditional businesses were paying in the European Union.²⁹ Because of such factors as Ireland desiring more generalized economic reforms involving the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), however, the proposal may take a while to be approved by the EU member states.

In large measure, the issue in Ireland concerned corporate taxes owed in that country by, especially, US multinational companies. This became a matter of concern after the European Commission determined that Apple owed Ireland about 14.5 billion euros in tax. This came after a “sweetheart deal,” as the result of which Ireland had given Apple “state aid” in the form of a tax break which the Irish government now declared illegal.

The tax break was, allegedly, the result of a so‐called “double Irish” tax loophole in which the company was believed to be storing about two‐thirds of Apple's profits generated outside of the US. This was because of deals signed in Ireland in 1991, which prompted an EU inquiry in 2013. In 2016, the European Commission determined that the taxes were owed, a ruling which Ireland decided to appeal. The European Commission then announced that it would refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice.

Piracy of audio and video content was a global fact of life even before digitization. Music cassettes were widely duplicated and sold on a pirated basis. In some parts of the world, particularly in Asia, the hugely popular VCD (video compact disc) format facilitated cheap and easy, although often illegal, copying of movies which would otherwise be distributed on VHS tape or DVD. Later VCDs were typically produced using copy protection. The switch to digital media forms has, however, opened up a whole host of new piracy options, with movies frequently distributed on an unapproved basis in many parts of the world by such means as BitTorrent downloads or traded flash drives.

Other methods of media piracy have arisen. Indications suggest that digital piracy has actually been on the decline in countries where services like Netflix and Spotify are available at affordable prices. That is because these services offer such ready access to a multitude of titles for low cost that much of the incentive for piracy is allegedly removed. Some correlation appears to exist, however, between lower‐income countries and a high rate of pirated media access.³⁰

Singapore, on the other hand, is pointed to as an exception. Singapore is the world's fourth most prosperous country, yet it is often referred to as a haven for digital piracy. That is not to say, however, that there are no legal crackdowns on piracy in Singapore. A raid in 2013, for instance, resulted in the seizure of hundreds of boxes apparently intended to provide illicit access to TV content from pay TV provider StarHub. In addition, copyright holders may initiate court action against illegal access. Singapore was reviewing its existing copyright laws in 2017, with the possibility that new legal restrictions would be enacted against the use of VPNs to access media content which would otherwise be blocked.

Legal devices commonly sold in Singapore, for example, come with built‐in options to access unauthorized TV and movies via streaming. In other cases, buyers install unauthorized software for free access to pay content. Singapore in particular has been called “the worst” in the Asia‐Pacific region in terms of unauthorized streaming devices. An issue clouding debate in that country regarding the devices is that they can also be used for legal and authorized media access. Singapore is also said to rank ninth in the world in terms of numbers of visits to piracy websites.³¹

Some illicit access in Singapore uses the Kodi web‐streaming platform, which is popular with some individuals in America and elsewhere. A new law, the Digital Economy Act, passed in 2017 in the UK, makes piracy using Kodi a crime resulting in potentially ten years in jail. This falls under the Act's provisions regarding Internet copyright infringement. Other interesting provisions of the Act, by the way, include one which requires cellular phone providers to set a cap on monthly spending to an amount agreed to by the customer, and another which requires Internet service providers to block adult content unless the user opts out.

When examining sheer numbers of Internet users, the US takes the lead in terms of visits to unauthorized streaming portals and torrent sites. In terms of percentage of Internet users, however, the highest percentage of users accessing media pirate sites was found in Latvia, as of 2016. Latvia was followed by Bulgaria, Lithuania, Croatia, and Spain.³²

Various forms of software and websites have arisen over the years in an attempt to provide free and unauthorized access to copyrighted music, movies, and TV programs. The original Napster, not to be confused with the present‐day service of that name, was an online mp3 music file‐sharing site which operated on a peer‐to‐peer (P2P) basis. After a series of court cases beginning in 2000, the service shut down in 2001.

Then in 2003, the Pirate Bay (TPB) appeared, a website based in Sweden which was created by an anti‐piracy organization and which offered access to TV programs, movies, and software via P2P file sharing using BitTorrent. TPB became a global phenomenon, although access varied from one country to another, as not all Internet service providers would allow access. The website's founders were sentenced to prison terms and a fine in 2009. Despite some downtime, the site is still functioning today. Servers appear to have been moved from one location to another at various times and in various countries, and were only sometimes located within Sweden.

Piracy as it pertains to web‐streaming services constitutes a massive global issue. The loss to services like Netflix and Amazon is said to be expected to reach about $52 billion worldwide for the period from 2016 to 2022.³³ One reason for this is that countries vary in terms of their citizens' recognition of piracy as a legal issue. In one study, 87% of Russian respondents did not recognize accessing pirated content as being illegal.³⁴

Increasingly, concerns have been expressed over the growing presence of webcams. Not only do they cover much of the planet, including traffic intersections and many public spaces, but at the same time, facial recognition software grows in popularity and sophistication. One study is claimed to have found that the average person in the UK is caught on camera about 70 times per day.³⁵ Moscow is said to be using a network of over 150 000 closed‐circuit TV cameras.³⁶

An Internet and Digital Media Timeline

The phenomenal emergence and evolution of computing, the Internet, and digital media has shown rapid growth, with technological antecedents dating back hundreds of years.

Conclusions

The Internet was born in the United States and was, at first, largely motivated by the American 1950s Cold War posture. The emergence of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s as a distinctly separate use for the Internet began a process which took the Internet increasingly out of US hands. The WWW, as a subset of the Internet, was conceived by a British physicist, Tim Berners‐Lee, while working in a Swiss nuclear physics lab. The governing body which he established to set standards for the web, the organization known as the World Wide Consortium (W3C) was formed at MIT in the US, but was, from the start, multinational in nature.

The web has grown and developed with phenomenal speed, and one characteristic which has been noted by various sources is that as web presence continues to increase globally, US dominance continues to wane in many respects. In 2016, even ICANN, the pre‐WWW entity which was formed to govern web addresses and Internet domains, severed its ties with the US Department of Commerce, thereby bringing it out of US control and into a multinational governing structure.

Some US‐based websites, such as Google and YouTube, enjoy popularity throughout much of the world. China, however, constitutes a fifth of the world's population, and in China such US‐based sites as Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are blocked. In Russia, the ninth most populous country in the world, VK is the social media platform of choice, not Facebook or Twitter. In the 1990s, two‐thirds of the world's online population was American. Now, the number of North American Internet users has shrunk to well below a fourth. The top five world regions in terms of number of Internet users are listed in Table 5.5. The US falls at the bottom of this list, just above the Middle East.

In some ways, the US does still play a leading role in global digital and online media. Hollywood entertainment is disseminated throughout most of the world through streaming media. Google remains the world's most popular website, although major portions of the world use it seldom if ever. YouTube enjoys tremendous popularity in much of the world and, despite its nature as a video service, has developed into the world's leading music‐streaming platform.

Further, interpretations differ as the vibrancy of the US involvement in the Internet. One recent article will state that the American hegemony has ended, as far as the Internet is concerned, while the next will insist that it continues. A factor which seems clear, however, is that global telecommunications infrastructures are developing rapidly.

Those infrastructures do not just support entertainment. Most nations have a vested interest in supporting technological advancement, because those infrastructures support global banking and commerce, scientific and medical research, government, education, and various other aspects of 21st‐century life across the planet.

About 50 or 60 years ago, much of the globe saw little in terms of advanced technological development. Now, however, a growing tech base has been emerging in formerly underdeveloped areas. Surprisingly, Bangladesh and Nigeria have developed into major Internet users. Internet‐based media options in China are developing rapidly, with little indication of interest in American websites.

Dominance of the web by US entities and by the English language is rapidly waning. The previous edition of this textbook noted changes in global web‐based communication which were set to occur. Now, to a large extent, those changes have already occurred. More such changes are still occurring with startling speed. A technological innovation which began in the US, the Internet, is spreading throughout the world, oftentimes to people who now only rarely think of its historical connections to US innovation.