• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.45
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• pp.77-110
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• 2009

This study explores the academic development of the Political Economy of Communication, which is pursued by reviewing academic characteristics, research subjects, key scholars, formal and informal institution as an academic hub, key articles, major academic associations and academic journals. In addition, this study examines important theoretical limitations and tasks to deal with in the future, which have been exposed through several heated debates with other research traditions such as Cultural Studies and Post Modernism.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.45
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• pp.7-48
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• 2009

The recent crises of Marxism do not mean Marx’s crisis. Marx said that he was not a Marxist. The purposes of this essay explore (1) the modern identity of the political economy; (2) the possibilities of mutual understanding between neoclassical economics and Marxist economics; (3) problems of the political economy in media and communication industry. I have begged for analytical Marxists, because of their good fruits. They accepted the methods of modern social science and they constituted a tremendous advance in the application of the scientific methods to the study of society. In insisting on micro-foundations(methodological individualism), analytical Marxism distinguished itself from structuralism and functionalism. I appreciate that analytical Marxism has reduced a theory to practice. But the works didn’t listen to everyone(from Marxists to un-Marxists), and explain everything. Making theory with production/consumption, macro/micro, and structure/behavior is a road to the political economy in the long run. It also applies to media and communication industry. The realm of media/communication is broad, which in philosophy, humanities, politics, economics, sociology, and engineering. And media policy is more complicated by politicians who look at the same situation from different angles. By the aid of interdisciplinary research, the political economy of media/communication shall explain at full length.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.11
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• pp.62-84
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• 1998

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.57
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• pp.33-48
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• 2012

Over the last decades, the issue of work or labor has played a critical role in prevailing discourses to represent the changed economic reality. Aesthetic labor, cultural work, network labor, team-work and alike, have played a dazzling role to represent the emerging economic order, employing the word of labor. Certainly, it is not less than a part of a wide range of shifts in order to make capital work with more effect by making up a workable and governable subject. In this article, I try to examine shifts around the media work which has contributed to expand the new discourse of 'labor.' I will say that it is quite crucial for accounting for the reality of media work to shed light on moves to represent media work, and, among others, one to transform the subjectivity involved in it among others. Furthermore, it would be necessary to take a close look at the subjectivity of media work and its modification to deal with and eliminate the precariousness of media work. Saying about media work without paying any attention to heterogenous and various practices to compose a media work, one is forced to regard media work as the matter of economic and legal interests. In addition, it would bring about that the cultural political concerns of media work will be detached from critical sight of the media cultural studies. Referring to major studies around media work in critical media studies, cultural studies and political economy of communication, this article will briefly look into the arrangement of contentions around subjectivity of media work in South Korea. And it will try to suggest what cultural-political strategy we need to investigate, fighting against the hegemonic power to generate and regulate media work and its workers in precarious conditions. It does not intend to search the media work and its complicated realities in detail in South Korea. I wish that it would make a preliminary step to propose and elaborate the critical analysis of media work and its form of subjectivities.