Communication media diffusion and substitutions: longitudinal trends from 1980 to 2005 in Korea

Abstract

This study analyzes longitudinal trends in Korean use of (1) domestic mail, (2) international mail, (3) domestic telephone calls, (4) international outgoing telephone calls, (5) telex, (6) mobile telephones, (7) televisions and (8) the internet to examine the media’s displacement or supplementary effects.The results show that international mail, domestic telephone and telex can be best described by a quadratic indicating they are undergoing disadoption while the trends for domestic mail and international telephone calls show exponential growth. Correlations confirmed that new media have displaced international mail, domestic telephone and telex, yet they do not substitute for domestic letters and international telephone calls. Finally, television, mobile telephones and the internet are at the exponential or logistic growth stage and supplement each other.