• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.41-76
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• 2013

Based on an analysis of the Japanese animation director Kamiyama Kenji's Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex series, this paper discusses two important subjects in modern technoscience-cyborg and old age. In fact, age has been an important social and political category in the modern world, along with gender, race, and class. However, age has not been a significant research topic for STS scholars. Even though many of these investigators have extensively explored the complex relationship between gender and technoscience, especially after the publication of Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" (1991), few of them have been interested in how age is reconfigured by modern science and technology. If women, as Haraway has claimed, can have a different political and cultural outlook by becoming cyborgs, then, can we expect a similar socio-cultural transformation with regard to the interaction between cyborg and old age? Do the elderly experience lesser age discrimination through the growth of biomedicine and technoscience? Indeed, it is believed that seniors are increasingly becoming cyborgs with advancing age, since their declining bodily functions are consistently replaced and assisted by various biomedical technologies. Does this enable them to overcome ageism and age discrimination as well as their alleged physiological and mental limitations? As an answer to this question, Mike Featherstone has asserted that becoming a cyborg in old age could make the wrinkled skin a mere mask and create diverse new possibilities that were hitherto unavailable to an aging person. Based on my reading of Ghost in the Shell, however, I analyze a more complex set of problems when the senile cyborg is created through the encounter between the elderly and technoscience. I argue that while the senile cyborg could challenge traditional family ideology and nationalism it would leave ageism intact and define a new individualistic life form through a body controlled within the globalized internet and capitalist economy.

• Proceedings of the Costume Culture Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.128-129
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• 2003

최근 시장개방과 더불어 각종 문화매체의 통한 문화교류와 급속도로 증가하고 있는 인터넷 이용은 현대사회의 대중문화의 글로벌화를 만들어 현대인의 가치관에 큰 변화를 주고 있다. 특히 20세기 이전까지 전통적인 사회를 고수하고 있던 비서구권의 문화가 보다 서구적이며 비전통적으로 변화되어 가고 있다(Featherstone, 1990). 1988년의 이미 Triandis 등의 연구자들은 일본문화에 대한 연구에서 일본인들의 가치관이 전통적인 집단주의 측면보다 서구적인 개인주의 측면이 보다 강하게 나타나기 시작한다고 보고하였다. (중략)

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.79-90
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between social perception reflected in product advertisement and consumerism toward commodification of sex among college students. Subjects of this study were 1,100 college students in the Daegu metropolitan areas. Social perceptions were assessed by questions such as attitudes toward beauty contests, degree of commodification of sex in product advertisements and buying patterns. Consumerism was assessed by the Korean Featherstone version of consumer culture. Major findings of this study were as follows: a significant difference in the social perception of commodification of sex was found between male and female college students, showing that female students were more negative toward commodification of sex than male students. Higher scores were found for consumerism when subjects had higher perceptions for commodification of sex. Hence, the degree of commodification of sex was positively related to the degree of consumerism. In conclusion, consumerism enforced commodification of sex among college students, resulting negative effects on the sex culture in general.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.857-864
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• 2002

The aim of this study is to investigate the end of filaments of the different toothbrushes in the market through the stereomicroscope and to evaluate the % of rounded-end filaments considered to be acceptable. 9 brands, total 11 type toothbrushes were tested. 2 toothbrushes of each type which is marked as rounded-end filaments were tested. The toothbrushes which are not marked as rounded-end filaments were excluded. The domestic as well as foreign toothbrushes which are familiar to consumers were tested. 2 tufts of each toothbrushes were cut and examined by stereomicroscope using $40{\times}$ magnification. The procedure was carried out with blind-technique, and the digital photographs were taken. Besides the % of rounded-end filaments, total tufts number, material of the tuft, stiffness, and other special characteristics were recorded. By the classification of Silverstone and Featherstone, rounded-end filaments were examined and counted. The results shows that there are different range of rounded-end filaments according to the toothbrush types(17.7%-91.2%). Atman toothbrush has the most rounded-end filaments(91.2%) among the observed toothbrushes, and the Advantage Plus(Ora1-B) has the next(86.75%). E-Clean #411 has the least(17.70%) and E-Clean #410 of the same brand has also low % rounded-end filaments(20.60%). While G.U.M #409(Butler) has 67.90% rounded-end filaments, G.U.M #471 of the Same brand has comparative low 41.83% rounded-end filaments. 4 types of total 11 have the rounded-end filaments over 80%, however other 4 types have under even 50%. Considering that the correct brushing habit with a toothbrush which has rounded-end filaments can protect the gingival injury and tooth abrasion, it is thought that we dentists need to give the correct information about toothbrush to the patients