Tending to the “Flower of Capitalism:” Consuming, Producing and Censoring Advertising in South Korea of the '00S
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Tending to the “flower of capitalism:” Consuming, producing and censoring advertising in South Korea of the '00s by Olga Fedorenko A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto © Copyright by Olga Fedorenko 2012 Tending to the “flower of capitalism:” Consuming, producing and censoring advertising in South Korea of the '00s Olga Fedorenko Doctor of Philosophy Department of East Asian Studies University of Toronto 2012 Abstract My dissertation examines discourses and practices that surrounded consumption and production of advertising in South Korea in the first decade of the 21st century. In its approach, my study breaks away from works that assume that advertising performs the same role universally and that local advertising industries should follow the uniform path of development, in terms of both creative content and industry structures. Treating advertising as an integral part of social reality, I embed my analysis in Korea's idiosyncratic social, cultural, political, and economic contexts to interrogate non-marketing functions of advertising. My dissertation investigates multiple projects that advertising mediates in contemporary South Korea, from challenging social norms and renegotiating cultural meanings, to contesting capitalist control over mass media and articulating fantasies of humanist capitalism. I explore how advertising consumers (including advertising censors) and advertising producers channel, shape, enable or block the flows of advertising messages and revenues. My conclusion is that, in South Korea, the marketing instrumentality of advertising is subordinated to the ethos of public interest, and both advertising consumers and producers strive for advertising that promotes humanist values and realizes democratic ideals, even if it jeopardizes the commercial interests of advertisers. Theoretically, this study builds on critical theory and anthropology of media while drawing on Korean Studies scholarship to grasp interconnections between the practices of advertising ii production and consumption, on the one hand, and, on the other, the modern entanglements of capitalism and democracy. Methodologically, I combine a discourse analysis of advertising- related public texts—popular advertising campaigns, responses to them in mass media and the blogosphere as well as the exhibits of the Advertising Museum in Seoul—with ethnographic fieldwork at two sites, an advertising agency and a quasi-government advertising review board, both in Seoul. iii Acknowledgments This project was realized thanks to support of many people. I am grateful to my supervisor Andre Schmid for taking over my supervision and being sympathetic towards my project. I thank him for kind generosity, thoughtful insight and contagious calmness, which I particularly appreciated over the last year. His inspiring questions, constructive suggestions and overall perspective made the project of dissertation writing much less torturous that it could have been. I also would like to thank the other members of my supervisory committee. Joshua Barker was the inspiration behind my thinking about advertising in terms of publics, and I have greatly benefited from his savvy advice about research and life in academy. From Tania Li, I learnt about governmentality. Those ideas were formative in how I conceived my project and thought about advertising effects. Outside of my committee, I thank Janet Poole for comments on my various presentations, which helped me think about the bigger picture. I have special thanks for Professor Shin In Sup, for taking interest in my research, sharing his rich stories, giving advice on navigating Korea's advertising world, mediating introductions, supplying me with references and sending me materials as well as for his warmth and encouragement. Wonderful discussions after his Tuesday seminars at ChoongAng University in the fall 2009 and later at Tondaemun's Gostiny dvor were among the rewards of my fieldwork. Countless people have helped my research in South Korea. Professor Youen Kim provided institutional affiliation at Hanyang University's GSIS during my fieldwork. I thank Ahn Sukyung, Bae Seog-Bong, Cheong, Seong-Ho, Choi Joo Ho, Chung Kwang-mo, Les Edwards, Ha Haeng-Bong, Hong, Hwang Ingyu, Kang Sun-Kyu, Kim Eunhee, Kim Hung-ki, Kim Jung-Hwa, Kim Soo-Jin, Lee Wonyul, Lim Jae-Wan, Na Jung-Sin, Park Jin-Ho, Park Jeong-Sun, Park Ki Hong, Park Kwang-Soon, Park Yunjin, T.K. Song, Alex Park, Ryoo Hong-Joon, Ryu Sang-Jin, Clint Yoo, Yun Jeong-ju. I am particularly grateful to workers of the advertising agency, where I did my internship, for making me feel welcome and sharing their experiences with me, especially the members of the Account Service Team #8. For moral and intellectual support at the different stages of the graduate school, as well as for fun times, I thank students at the University of Toronto— Joshua Baxter, Matt Bears, Sean Callaghan, Christina Han, Banu Kaygusuz, Sungjo Kim, Yonsue Kim, Sunho Ko, Minna Lee, Tina Lee, David Machek, Mark McCognahy, Kris Meen, Sara Osenton, James Poborsa, Baryon Tensor Posadas, Wang Jing, Sunyoung Yang and Lidu Yi. I reserve special thanks for Lindsay iv Bell, my writing partner during the last year, whose sharp comments got me back on track whenever I lost sight of the practical dimensions of the task at hand. A catalyst for my writing and thinking was the SSRC KSDW 2011 workshop, and I thank all the participants, particularly Kwang-hyung (P.K.) Park, Katherine Lee, Sohl Lee, Marcie Middlebrooks and Jon Glade, for great suggestions. The advice and encouragement from the faculty mentors—Nancy Abelmann, Seungsook Moon, Jun Yoo and Suk-Young Kim—came at a timely moment, and I am especially grateful to Nancy Abelmann for thoughtful engagement with my work. I am also thankful for the feedback offered when I presented my findings at Doksung Womens University (Seoul, South Korea); at the Korean Popular Culture conference at UC Irvine; at Luiss Guido Carli University (Rome, Italy); and at the University of Toronto. My dissertation chapters benefited from the comments I received from the participants of the Dissertation Workshop series at Anthropology Department in the fall-winter 2009 (led by by Girish Daswani) and the fall 2010 (led by Michael Lambek). And I thank my friends—Janna Ballod, Alex Dantchinyou, Mary Jung, Janice Kim, Oxana Kouznetsova, Christina Niederwanger, Lida Nosrati, Andrey Polekhin, Andrea Resca and Nicole (Jody) Shipton—for forgiving my occasional disappearances in the dissertation-writing land. I also thank Stephen Schaffer for convincing me to pursue graduate studies at the University of Toronto. The financial support for the project came from a number of organizations. My preliminary research in South Korea in the summer 2007 was funded by Travel Grant under Dr. David Chu Scholarship in Asia Pacific Studies. The Dissertation Fieldwork Grant of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research supported my fieldwork. At different points, my graduate studies at the University of Toronto were funded by Ontario Graduate Scholarship and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. While I was writing the dissertation, I received support from the Korea Foundation Graduate Studies Fellowship and the University of Toronto's Doctoral Completion Award. I owe special thanks to Ken, for encouraging me to work on advertising, for getting me to read Slavoj !i"ek and for always willing to be a sounding board for my perhaps too frequent epiphanies. I thank him for advice and inspiration. Most of all, I thank my parents for putting up with me going far away and doing what I want to do. v Note on translation, transliteration, Korean names and pseudonyms Korean words are transliterated according to the McCune-Reischauer system, except when common usage differs. Korean names are given with the surname preceding their first name, unless the author in question resides and publishes primarily outside of Korea. Whenever possible, I attempted to use the transliterations of people's names that they chose for themselves. For authors who write in both English and Korean, I used the transliteration used in their English-language publications and provided a McCune-Reischauer transliteration of their names in brackets. Unless otherwise noted, for Korean organizations, I used their preferred rendering of their names in English, as indicated in their publications or on their websites. Most of my informants were not concerned about me using their real names or the names of their organizations. Yet I am using pseudonyms to avoid any unexpected consequences, except for those people who clearly, directly and repeatedly indicated that they wanted to appear under their real names. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. vi Table of Contents Abstract.......................................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments......................................................................................................................iv Note on translation, transliteration, Korean names and pseudonyms....................................vi Table of Contents......................................................................................................................vii List of figures..............................................................................................................................ix