• 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.70
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• pp.9-34
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• 2015

While dramatic shifts in the media environment underscore the emerging importance of structural approaches in media studies. political economists in Korea have failed to meet such demands. It is particularly noteworthy that their most serious weakness lies in economic theories. This paper aims to examine major problems in political economic approaches in Korea and suggest some research agenda and directions for the future. Above all, political economists need to scrutinize and elaborate both microscopic and macroscopic frameworks. On the microscopic level, they may learn tremendous implications from the "audience-commodity" thesis and recent debates on "information goods" among Korean economists. For the more macroscopic part, it is urgently needed to delve into mid-level issues that may illuminate specific ways the media capital operates: trends in the accumulation of capital, the influence of technological innovation, changes in the labor process, and the relations among production, circulation and consumption sectors.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.33
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• pp.193-225
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• 2006

This study attempts to reconsider the significance of political economy as a theory of knowledge and/or a method for explaining the convergence of broadcast and telecommunications. It is going to suggest what the domains of political economy should be in the future by both highlighting the characteristics and blind spots of previous studies and drawing some distinctive features of a new media environment. The principals and recent research trends in political economy are reviewed in order to make clear that the historical totality as a meta-framework of political economy needs to be reexamined in the era of convergence. Although the scope of political economy has been limited to criticize the structure of media ownerships, the study emphasizes the importance of media consumer theory. It also discusses the problems of free market theory, distortion of active media audience theory, and limitations and creative tension of audience commodity. Finally, this study stresses the significance of audience-oriented policies in order to make approach to practical sides of media politics.

• 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.80
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• pp.7-39
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• 2016

This essay deals with the bulk of problems of media raised by social inequality. I attempted to examine the relationship between inequality and media/information. In adopting the method of political economy based on dialectical viewpoint, I argue that collaboration among Chaebol, media, power result in the media capitalism. This mode of production has brought about the decline of public service and democracy. It led the Korean industrial capitalism to media capitalism. This mechanism is a dominant but unfair system with grasping of wealth, power, information. The media capitalism, based on profit, privatizations, power monopoly, remains democracy and public service in retreat. Chaebol-media-power complex plays an important role in cementing the establishment. We are reminded how much the dominant system has deteriorated the public interests of the media market and information.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.45
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• pp.113-150
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• 2009

Attempts to relax cross-media ownership have been made by conservative Party and leading dailies. A concern with the cross-ownership of media is predominant in media and political spheres. This article is about the media market concentration created by cross-media ownership. This essay is a response to the demand of the ruling camp that attempts to concentrate on media market, and to increase their influence. I have outlined issues of cross ownership. The finding of this research supported the rationale of ban on cross ownership of newspaper and broadcasting outlet.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.70
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• pp.165-188
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• 2015

This paper deals with the questions: Are media user's activities labour? Or rent? These questions have provoked a debate in the critical media studies and Marx's theory. But it is not a matter of choosing either labour or rent. Even if user's activities could contribute to valorization, it needs some mediating process. Media Platforms-Google, Facebook, etc.-play a key role, and have to employ other forms of labour. Labour in media platform produces some capital commodities. In view of media platform, Smythe's audience commodity can be considered as capital commodity. Assertion in this paper expected to provoke new debate on media platforms and its labourer.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.76
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• pp.31-60
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• 2016

The task of this essay deals with the China's Cultural Rise in analizing the power of media and 'Go Global' policy. The phenomena of Chinese cultural hegemony over Asia beg study. I review the Chinese cultural industry going global. The notion of cultural hegemony is introduced in this study, in order to explain the rise of China accelerating a penetration and influence of Chinese cultural capital and its power. A peaceful rise of China links to its cultural hegemony over Asian countries. Currently, China has not sufficiently enjoyed the soft power due to its lack of globally accepted ideological dynamics in China's culture and media. But in the near future, market-driven Chinese cultural capital and contents will replace Korean ones.

• 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.