Pokyny Pro Vypracování Bakalářské/Diplomové Práce
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MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA Fakulta sociálních studií Media Ethics for Television Shows: A Comparative Study on Ethical Concerns over Television Shows in the Czech Republic and South Korea Etika médií a soup opery: komparativní studie českých a korejských televizních seriálů Diploma thesis Eva Kolovrátková Brno 2017 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. ……………………………. Brno, 5. 6. 2017 2 Abstract The master thesis examines the identity of Czech audience that in regular term consumes Korean drama (soap opera). South Korea is an epicenter of popular culture of Asia where Korean drama plays important role and is followed by millions of viewers worldwide. Some tried to explain this phenomenon and point at “Asian moral values” based on Confucian traditions, such as family-orientednes, respect for elders. While we can understand how this applies to Asian audience, this research is challenging the question: Why Czech audience watches Korean drama? The study subsequently aims to define and explain the hybridity and proximity of transcultural communication process of Czech audience of Korean drama. Fieldwork consists primarily of internet ethnographic approach, the participant observation combined with in-depth interviews. Keyword Korean drama, soap opera, South Korea, audience, popular culture, popular pleasure, Asia, Czech Republic, identity, television, internet ethnographic approach, in-depth interviews Anotace Diplomová práce zkoumá české publikum korejského dramatu (soap opery). Práce si klade za cíl zjistit, co vede české publikum ke konzumaci korejské soap opery, Dosavadní výzkumy v oblasti mediálních studií hovoří o tzv. „asijských morálních hodnotách“, které nalézají svůj základ v Konfuciově nauce - orientace na rodinu, respekt ke starším. Zatímco mediální výzkumy této oblasti vysvětlují fenomén konzumace korejských dramat asijským publikem, už nevysvětlují proč tak korejské soap opery sledují kultury netknuty Konfuciovým učením. Zároveň se výzkum soustředí na působení korejského mediálního obsahu na změnu identity, konkrétně studie poznává a definuje hybriditu a proximitu transkulturního komunikačního procesu. Práce využívá kombinaci internetového etnografického výzkumu, zúčastněného pozorování s hloubkovými rozhovory. Klíčová slova Korejské drama, soap opera, Jižní Korea, Telenovela, Mediální studia, publikum, populární kultura, Asie, Česká republika, identita, televize, internetový etnografický výzkum, hloubkové rozhovory, transkulturní komunikace 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………… 3 Anotace……………………………………………………………………………………… 3 I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………….……….. 5 II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND…………………………………………………… 7 1 Korea as a new center of popular culture of East Asia….…………………………….. 7 1. 1 ‘Hallyu’: The Korean Wave – the ‘Korean Cool’……..…………………………….. 7 1. 2 The Korean Media Liberalization, Media Export and the Government’s Support….. 9 2 Soap Opera……………………………………………………………………………….. 13 2. 1 Soap Opera in Euro-American Culture……………………………………………… 13 2. 2 Korean drama………………………………………………………………………... 16 2. 2. 1 From History of Korean Drama to the Broad Spectrum of Drama Genres Today…………………………………………………………………………. 17 2. 2. 2 Transnational media and fandom: Reception and Appeal of Korean Drama…. 20 2. 3 Soap Opera in the Czech Republic…………………………………………………... 22 2. 4 Hallyu Wave and Korean drama in the Czech Republic…………………………….. 23 3 Culture and Identity ……………………………………………………………………. 26 3. 1 Social construction of ‘self’…………………………………………………………. 28 3. 2 Understanding the Identity of Korea: Construct of Danil Minjok………………...… 32 3. 3 Theory of Cultural Globalization……………………………………………………. 35 4 Culture and Power………………………………………………………………………. 37 4. 1 The Vocabularies of ‘Popular Culture’ …………………………………………..… 43 4. 2 The Critical Theories: Controlling and Controllable Popular Culture………...……. 44 4. 3 Controlling Popular Culture: Propaganda Theories……………………………..….. 45 4. 4 Controllable Popular Culture: Active Audiences…………………………….…….. 47 4. 5 Postmodern Popular Culture: Global Capital of Spectacle…………………….…… 50 5 Audience Theories and Research………………………………………………….…… 51 5. 1 Active audience research approaches………………………………………….…… 51 III. REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………..…... 58 The complete number of words: 23 418 4 I. INTRODUCTION Today, except the economical and technological development, Korea’s popular culture is increasing and its products such as Korean pop songs, movies, Korean dramas and idols are gaining popularity not just in Korea but also abroad. The name ‘Korean wave’ or ‘Hallyu’ is now well known and well used term not just within Asian media studies (Kim 2007). Even though the centre of Asian’s transnational popular culture used to be Tokyo and Hollywood (Visser 2002) since the late 1990’s becomes the new center South Korea (further as Korea) (Kim 2007, p. 135). Korean media products are exported mainly to the Asian countries, such as Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore but also to the United States, Mexico, Egypt, Iraq and European countries (ibid). The Czech audience of Korean soap opera (further as Korean drama), had to wait until 2015 when was the ever first and until this day (June 2017) also the last Korean drama ‘Lovers in Prague’ (2005) aired by NovaCinema. At the airing time the drama was already ten years old. Therefore the Czech audience has to search for them and also consume them online. According to quantitative research of Mazaná from 2014, Czech fandom is not a compact and united group rather it consists of little communities or even individuals altogether not exceeding the number of 3000 people (Marinescu, Mazaná, et al. 2014, pp. 47, 48). The fandom has an increasing tendency, therefore each year the number of fans rises. The objective of this thesis is to answer the question Why does the Czech audience choose to watch Korean drama? There are more soap operas easily accessible such as the Czech soap opera The Street or Rose Garden Surgery that are spoken in Czech language and the plot is set to Czech environment. We would assume the consumers of soap opera would rather choose the content of their own culture where they can reflect to it while understanding the socio-culture contents portrayed in soap opera. Then how is it that some Czech audience chooses to watch Korean drama, which they have to search online, read the subtitles in English, or even download the Czech subtitles, somehow crossing the culture barrier rather than simply switching on TV and watch the Czech soap operas instead. We are in that sense talking about the new definition or character of transcultural communication, the proximity of culture globalization. Additionally we would like to examine the common patterns in the consumer of Korean dramas as we hope to define the transcultural consumption impacts if any on the identity of consumers. 5 To our knowledge none research of similar character has been ever done specifically focusing on the relations of Korean drama and Czech audience. We therefore can rely only on quite a limited portion of data. Therefore examining the East-Asian regional popular cultural/media flows since the 20th century and the empirical researches of “regional” scholars’ (i.e. Iwabuchi 2001, 2002, 2004, Chua 2004, 2006, Kim 2008, Lee 2003) is providing us the entry point to the discourse of Asian media studies. Except the mentioned scholars we also base our research on the empirical evidence and theories of Euro- American soap opera1 researches, such as Ang, Anger, Hobson, Morley, Radway, Allan. The study is based on participant observation and twenty in-depth interviews. The author of research is a member of Facebook social club Czech Hallyu Wave since 2013 also is participating in online discussions on website Asianstyle.cz or Asianstar.cz, was present at K-pop contest in 2013 where also documented and interviewed several participants and is herself consumer of Korean dramas since 2010. Dorothy Anger implies that the soap opera audience can be studied also by the non-consumers of soap opera however she prefers the researcher himself/herself to watch soap opera, because that way is the researcher part of the studied community and therefore has a needed knowledge of the theme (Anger 1999). The author herself found her experience with Korean drama during the interviews not just helpful, but a must. We conducted twenty interviews of regular Czech consumers of Korean drama aged 18 – 35 years old that should, as we hope, answer the previously asked questions. 1 Not only soap opera but also other typically women oriented media contents 6 II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. Korea as a new center of popular culture of East Asia 1. 1 ‘Hallyu’: The Korean Wave – the ‘Korean Cool’ Korea replaced Japan as a center of Asian popular culture by the late 1990s (Kim 2007). That time Korean media products reached by high numbers for the first time in the history the market of overseas countries, even communist North Korea2 (New York Times 2005). The dramas made in past by the Korean ‘big three’ national channels (KBS, MBC, SBS) already reached Japan, China, North America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe (KOCIS 2011, p. 14), and also the Czech Republic. The widely popular series ‘Lovers in Prague’ from 2005 directly influenced the relationship of both countries, specifically increased the Korean’s interest of Prague since 2005. The Korean drama ‘Lovers in Prague’ was recently aired by NovaCinema in July 2015 as