A Critical Examination of Public Sphere Communication in the Decision-making Process in Relation to Seoul City Hall Plaza

A few years ago, many people proposed that a plaza be added to Seoul City Hall. The proposal, however, did not materialize because of traffic confusion. The June 2002 World Cup cheering in front of Seoul City Hall has prodded the public to reconsider the plaza. Even though the exercise failed to gain support, many democratic procedures, opening a Web page and design competitions, and so on were attempted while the design and management of Seoul City Hall Plaza was being deliberated. In the future, the need for proper communication and democratic procedures in the process of making decisions regarding public spaces is expected to increase because of the strengthening of the requirement of participatory and deliberative democracy. An examination of the nature and extent of the communication that has been carried out in relation to the plan to add a plaza to Seoul City Hall will be very helpful in gathering feedback to guide decision-making in regards to the use of other public spaces. Thus, this study has a three-fold purpose. : (1) to examine the theories that may justify the need for public input in relation to decisions made regarding the use of public spaces, and to propose the criteria to be used for the methods of communication (2) to examine the contents and conflicts of communication in relation to the decision made regarding the design and management of Seoul City Hall Plaza and (3) to examine the potential distortion of that communication by analyzing the communication according to the criteria previously proposed. The study method that is used herein is the analysis of articles about the subject matter, which have been posted on the Seoul City Hall Plaza Website and which have been published in newspapers such as the Chosun ilbo, Donga ilbo, the Jungang ilbo, and the Hankyoreh. Diverse article contents are also discussed. As result, there are many differences in the contents and viewpoints of the newspapers that are included in this study. In addition, the related Internet bulletin board has not been used actively, but has contributed to forming public opinion on this issue. Finally, the public demanded to be given acceptable reasons for the results of the design competition, and for the decision to make the grass plaza, which ignores the chosen design in the newspapers or on the Web page. However, their demand was rejected. The communication therefore became distorted and consequently did not become successful in bringing about its intended result.

서울시청 앞 광장조성 관련 공론장에서의 의사소통에 대한 비판적 검토