• Analyses & Alternatives
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.37-78
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• 2022

The U.S.-led international order, sustained by overwhelming national power since the end of the Cold War, is gradually being restructured from a unipolar international system to a bipolar international system or a multipolar international system, coupled with the weakening of U.S. global leadership and the rise of regional powers. Geopolitically, discussions have been constantly raised about the security instability that the reshaping of the international order will bring about, given that East Asia is a region where the national interests of the United States and regional powers sharply overlap and conflict. This study aims to critically analyze whether security discussions in Korea are based on appropriate crisis assessment and evaluation. This paper points out that the security crisis theory emerging in Korea tends to arise due to threat exaggeration and emphasizes the need for objective evaluation and conceptualization of the nature and the level of threats that the restructured international order can pose to regional security. Based on the analysis of changes in conflict patterns (frequency and intensity), occurring in East Asia during the periods divided into a bipolar system (1950-1990), a unipolar system (1991-2008), and a multipolar system (2009-current), this study shows that East Asia has not been as vulnerable to power politics as other regions. This investigation emphasizes that the complexity of Korea's diplomatic and security burden, which are aggravated by the reorganization of the international order, do not necessarily have to be interpreted as a grave security threat. This is because escalating unnecessary security issues could reduce the diplomatic strategic space of the Republic of Korea.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.59-72
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• 2020

Video games have become a powerful tool to tell a complex story realistically thanks to modern technology. Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018), is a video game title that touts cinematic qualities such as superb acting by the voice actors and jaw-dropping cinematography as well as a rich narrative following the protagonist, Arthur Morgan's quest for redemption. Using Aristotle's Poetics and Robert Mckee's Aristotelian theory on storytelling, this study highlights Arthur's gradual change from a ruthless gunman to an altruistic hero, from which it derives the theme of redemption, and his super-objective to protect those he cares about. Then, it also explains a variety of possibilities in the narrative of the game determined by the opened-ended game mechanics, particularly the "honor" system, which reflects Arthur's moral choices on the narrative presentation with different sets of dialogue and endings. However, the study ultimately argues Red Dead Redemption 2 to be incohesive in its storytelling due to "ludonarrative dissonance," a concept coined by Clint Hocking, which indicates a conflict between the narrative and game mechanics of a video game. It's mainly because the game's various narrative choices bring changes to neither the theme nor Arthur's super-objective. Furthermore, the double-standard of evaluation in the "honor" system, and its numeric ranking system of honor also lend themselves to ludonarrative dissonance even further. After all, the study ultimately claims ludonarrative dissonance in Red Dead Redemption essentially disrupts the game's narrative unity, which is Aristotle's one of most emphasized upon traits of any story and signifies the game's instability as a storytelling medium.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.361-404
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• 2023

This study utilized a cross-temporal meta-analysis to explore shifts in self-efficacy levels among Korean college students from 1999 to 2022. We expected that increases in authoritative parenting styles, narcissism levels among students, and individualism in Korea might have positively influenced the self-efficacy of college students over the years. Conversely, growing economic disparities, decreasing class mobility, and the increasing instability of job markets might have had negative effects on self-efficacy. To investigate this, we analyzed 293 self-efficacy studies involving Korean college students published between 1999 and 2022, encompassing a total of 88,904 participants. Our criteria included studies that used the three most prevalent self-efficacy scales in Korea, focused solely on Korean college students, were cross-sectional with a one-time self-efficacy measurement, and provided essential statistics for our analysis. The results indicated no significant change in the self-efficacy levels of Korean college students over the observed period from 1999 to 2022. Additionally, we examined correlations between self-efficacy and various social indicators from different time points (20, 15, 10, and 5 years prior, as well as the year of data collection). Findings revealed that both birth rate and consumer price fluctuation rate were consistently negatively correlated with self-efficacy, while gross national income was positively correlated. This study is the first to assess Korean college students' self-efficacy levels using a cross-temporal meta-analysis, offering foundational knowledge for implementing such analytical methods for subsequent research and providing an indirect assessment of the generational gap theory. Finally, the limitations of the study and the direction for future research were discussed.