• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.20
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• pp.141-176
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• 2003

This paper examined how Korean courts conceptualized and applied public interest defense of Penal Code to the libel cases raised by socially influential persons. For this, this paper analyzed a total of 58 libel cases in which 'public interest' was mentioned by Korean courts between 1981 and 2000. It was found that whereas truth or believed-to-be-true defense is emphasized In libel cases by politicians or public officials, public interest defense was emphasized in the cases by private figures. It was also found that Korean courts tended to think of matters related with 1) national security and social order, 2) prevention of asocial crime, 3) enlightening of public, and 4) protection of consumers' interest as public interest. Conclusively, 'public interest' is not simply applied as an independent legal defense, because Korean courts insistently concentrated on the truth of a story and did not even specifically define what is public interest. Constitution Court recently maintained that the slope of legal defense should be broadened when a story is about public matters. However, Korean courts will not be likely to accept public interest defense as an independent one for the time being.

• Journal of Korean Society of Archives and Records Management
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.47-69
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• 2012

There are so many personal experiences and innermost feelings in oral history resource. Thus, when we use the oral history resource, it has a lot of the possibility to arise ethical and legal issues. To prevent the problems and to protect interviewee, it is needed to comply the guideline for ethical and legal issues through the oral history project. The ethical issues are applied to every step of the project. The most important principle for ethical issues are the mind to protect the dignity of interviewee. The moral right is classified the right of privacy and defamation issues. The right of privacy is basic human rights to guard for the freedom of the individual. The defamation is defined as a false statement of the fact about a person which tend to injure that person's interest.