A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details 1 Between the Private and the Public: Affective Politics, Media and Public Engagement in Contemporary Korea So Hyung Kim University of Sussex Thesis submitted February 2014 in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 2 Dedication In memory of my father Kim Min-hak 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost, my heartfelt thanks goes to my family, especially my mother Baek Kyung-ja, whose endless love and encouragement have sustained me throughout my PhD life. I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisors Kate Lacey and Michael Bull. Without their thorough reading and constructive criticism, combined with constant motivation, my thesis would have not been completed. I’m also indebted to Liesbet van Zoonen and Gholam Khiabany for their invaluable suggestions, which helped my work become more solid. In addition, I would like to use this space to thank to Kim Jeong-tak, my academic advisor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea. I would like to give thanks to all the people that I discussed my work with, and who inspired and helped me in various ways throughout the project. In particular, I appreciate the support and help from the OhmyNews including the CEO Oh Yeon- ho, for having enabled my participation in the Citizen Reporters’ Forum in 2007 and 2008. Also my sincere thanks goes to the TVXQ teen-fans, who showed their passion and aspiration for democracy and a fairer, better society through the interviews, and also encouraged me to bear in mind how important and meaningful the research was and would be. Finally, I would like to thank my friends all over the world, who have given morale support through the ups and downs of PhD life. My special thanks goes to my dear friend Ken, who has motivated me to uphold belief in my project whenever doubts arose and proofread my works at the final stages. 4 Statement I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature:…………………………………………….. 5 University of Sussex So Hyung Kim Doctor of Philosophy Between the Private and the Public: Affective Politics, Media and Public Engagement in Contemporary Korea Summary This thesis aims to contribute to recent discussions in media and cultural studies and political communication about reconceptualising the relationships between politics, media and public engagement. It will do so by articulating the context and processes in which private citizens form political publics and the ways in which media genres beyond conventional news and public affairs encourage or enable civic engagement. It explores these issues in the context of the ongoing democratisation of South Korea since 1987, a nation with a particularly dynamic digital culture. The thesis critiques the conventional binaries between the private (emotion/entertainment/fans) and the public (reason/news/publics), and articulates the mediating contexts and processes in which the private shifts to the public. It seeks to situate affect and entertainment (popular culture) as key agents in mobilising and sustaining citizens’ political interest and participation. The key research questions are therefore: in what context do media offer a discursive space to connect people’s everyday lives to the public world as well as to recruit and sustain political interest?; how does affect play a critical part in making sense of the public world, and mobilising political participation?; and in what ways do private individuals come to shape the public? These questions are examined in the context of ICT-based media environments and in relation to three empirical studies: 1) OhmyNews - a global icon of citizen journalism - in which the ‘feminised’ news produced by citizens (re- )contextualised private interests into public concerns, and allowed the public to make a real change in the 2002 Presidential election and the 2010 local elections; 2) online political satire, in which politics is situated in an entertainment mode through citizens’ creative reinterpretation, and which helped mobilise citizens’ political interest and action during the 2004 Presidential impeachment and general election; and 3) the politicisation of teen fandom, in which music fans were mobilised as political actors in the 2008 anti-US beef protest. The thesis employs a wide range of research methods including participant observation, interpretive textual analysis, and semi-structured and in-depth interviews. In this way the thesis identifies a complex linkage of traditionally separated spheres, such as reason and affect, news and entertainment media, and expert and common knowledge. 6 Table of Contents Dedication ...................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................... 3 Statement ........................................................................................................................ 4 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 5 Contents ......................................................................................................................... 6 List of Acronyms and Abbreviations ............................................................................. 8 List of Tables and Figures .............................................................................................. 9 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 10 2. Affect, Entertainment and Publics in Everyday Politics: Internationalising theory within a Korean perspective ......................................................................................... 21 2.1. The Public/Private Dichotomy: A fractal opposition ........................................ 23 2.2. The Public Sphere and the Communicative Mode ............................................ 26 2.3. The Formation of Publics: (Ordinary) people, audiences and citizens .............. 47 2.4. The Place of Emotions in Politics ...................................................................... 55 2.5. Recalibrating the Distinction ............................................................................. 60 3. Mapping Out the South Korean Media Landscape: In relation to the role of the state ...................................................................................................................................... 62 3.1. Korean Transition in the Wave of Global Move toward Democratisation ........ 63 3.2. The Role of the State and the Media Landscape before Democratisation (1945- 1987) ......................................................................................................................... 66 3.3. Alternative Media and Civic Action to Realise the 1987 Democratisation ...... 81 3.4. Media Landscape Reshaped in the wake of the 1987 Democratisation (1987- 1997) ......................................................................................................................... 87 3.5. The ICT-boosting Policy and the Online Media Landscape (1998-2010) ........ 93 3.6. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 102 4. Methodology .......................................................................................................... 104 4.1. Overall Research Design and Research Questions .......................................... 104 4.2. Research Questions and Method Design Chapter by Chapter ......................... 106 4.3. Ethical Considerations ..................................................................................... 121 5. Ordinary People and OhmyNews: Reshaping the news in between the private and the public .................................................................................................................... 123 5.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 123 7 5.2. The Launch of OMN ....................................................................................... 126 5.3. OMN’s Citizen Journalism .............................................................................. 128 5.4. Remarkable Turn: The 2002 presidential election .......................................... 150 5.5. The Cheonan Sinking and the 2010 Local Election ........................................ 161 5.6. Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 171 6. Online Political Satire: Placing politics in affect and entertainment ..................... 174 6.1. Introduction ....................................................................................................