• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.139-175
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• 2014

For the past 20 years, expert groups and citizens in Korea have debated on the usefulness of personalized medicine. These debates were mainly focussed on the possibility of the promise - people mainly discussed whether it was a probable future or if it was just a hype. Following Hedgecoe and Tutton(2002) who argue that it is only a 'rhetorial device', we will analyze about 9,000 news media coverages that deal with personalized medicine. With these data, we will show that the same terminology of personalized medicine have been used very differently according to the time and people who use it. Our research will show that this term has both diachronic heterogeneity and synchronic equivocality. This has happened because of the innate lack that exists in our symbolic system. Policy and governance regarding new technology is important because they provide quilting point to those slippery term/signifiant. Also we would like to carefully suggest that we might be able to call this phenomena as signifiant-politics.

• 한국과학기술학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2015.12a
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• pp.247-278
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• 2015

Recently, as DNR prevails more and more in Korea, discussions regarding meaningless medical life-sustaining-treatment (LST) intensified. Some of the Supreme Court decisions are even discussed in mass media, causing public debates. These cases tell us that, as life-sustaining medical technologies are highly developed, more sociological and policy-related analyses are needed on them. Firstly, this study will review 40 previous studies that analyze recent discussions in Korea about LST. Secondly, this study also shows that in bioethical and policy-related perspectives, governance about LST calls for a new implications regarding thanatoethics and thanatopolitics. In this new theoretical framework, death with dignity (DwD) can be understood as a process of giving back the thanatopower to the subject who chooses his way of ending based on his sound and free will. Thirdly, some of the new LST or resuscitation technologies such as automated external defibrillators (AED) are developed in RRI framework. However, if subjects themselves choose not to apply those technologies on them, as in the case of DNR (do not resuscitate) vows, meaning of developing such technologies are to be questioned. But currently such questions regarding the limitations of RRI are seldom asked. I argue that in order to properly apply RRI framework on existing technology, we also need to consider these points.

• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.101-152
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• 2018

This study discusses the research trends in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) which recently emerged as the central concept among international innovation policy circles. In particular, we attend to the conceptual diversity of RRI, showing that each trend emphasizes different elements of RRI and reflects the context in which the concept has emerged. The first trend centers on research on governing emerging technologies which has been developed from the tradition of technology assessment and ELSI. The second trend has been closely related to the innovation policy efforts to take up the social challenge driven innovation as a new driving force for innovations. The third involves the attempts to operationalize the concept of RRI to evaluate whether the vision of RRI has been successfully incorporated in the actual innovation practices. We also insist that recent Korean R&D policies which emphasize social responsibility of science and technology include essential elements of RRI, although they do not use the term RRI. Finally, we discuss policy implications of discourse over RRI on such innovation policies.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.29-50
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• 2017

In emerging technologies, innovation processes are dynamic in that the government needs to regularly review its policies to resonate with rapid technological advancements, changing public needs, and evolving global trends. In the 1990s, the Internet grew at an explosive rate, but many applications were constrained due to security concerns. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) seemed to be the fundamental technology to address these concerns by providing security functions. As of 2017, PKI is still one of the best technologies for electronic authentication in an open network, but it is used only in limited areas: for user authentications in closed networks and for server authentications within network security infrastructure like SSL/TLS. The difference between expectation and reality of PKI usage is due to the evolution of the Internet along with the global adoption of new authentication policies under the Internet governance in the early 2000s. The new Internet governance based on the cooperation between multi-stakeholders is changing the way in which a government should act with regard to its technological policies. This paper analyzes different PKI policy approaches in the United States and Korea from the perspective of path-dependence theory. Their different policy results show evidence of the rise of the Internet governance, and may have important implications for policy-makers in the current global Internet society.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.11
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• pp.509-523
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• 2015

With the introduction of smart devices as a new channel of information distribution, the mass tourism that has been dominating the travel scene is being transformed into individual tourism. Therefore, it is more than important to establish an advanced smart tourism environment using cutting-edge ICT technologies in order to go into one of tourism developed countries. In line with that, this study draws both local and international cases to show where smart tourism stands now by mapping out problems and solutions by category. Firstly, in terms of infrastructure, establishing distribution platform and big data analyzing systems were suggested. Secondly, to fit the needs of consumers, converged tourism content and user experience based content development are in need. Lastly, in terms of governance forming public-private consultative body and incubating creative tourism companies are suggested. The study results will serve as a fruitful reference to those who want to establish business strategy related to smart tourism.