Before Going on the Journey

I’m more than thrilled at this moment. The Fordham team has been gathered in Poland and been ready to start an amazing study tour focusing on the media industry. Having a glimpse of the media industry in Poland, I find that the development of media highly relates to history remains in culture, economics, and society. Culture in Poland is bonded with religion, especially Catholic faith. One of the most interesting questions for me will be how Catholic Church combines with Polish life and instills in their traditional culture. What’s more, I wonder how the religious faith is preached with the help of media and whether it’s a reason why polish media products have barriers to overcome in the competition of international markets. In terms of economics situation in the media sector, Poland outperforms in the economic transition and shows a promising trend in the next five years. The revenue from media section has a significant growth since 2010. However, according to a report released in 2014, it accounts to only 2.9% of the overall European market in the year of 2014. Therefore, one of the highlights in the schedule is visiting a radio corporation with the longest history. It will be interesting to see how they survive in the digital rapids as a traditional media, how they reposition themselves in the new media outlet and play a role in public interests. Furthermore, concerning that 50.3% revenues come from broadcasting and cable, piracy problem is extremely threating to the future of Poland media industry. I would like to hear from local students that what reasons are listed behind the piracy issue in terms of quality of content, price sensitivity and the threat of substitutes. It will be interesting to compare the VOD platforms and the ratio of domestic products to foreign products in Poland with Chinese VOD platforms, a market has similar piracy issue. Moreover, the history remains in society involves free education system, solid management structure and cheap labor. In the visit of Jagiellonian University and panels with entrepreneurs, I’m looking forward to having a deep understanding of the current situation as well as the future developing direction about these social aspects in Poland. More specifically, I wonder if young entrepreneurs and the start-up company may lead a disrupting momentum in the field of new media and technology, such as build a more open business environment without various stratum differentiations. With a combination of historical culture landscapes and cutting-edge industry view, the study tour in Poland will definitely be a tremendous experience. I’m looking forward to embracing countless surprises and inspirations in the brilliant country, Poland. I will keep updating all the juicy details on the way.