• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.44
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• pp.108-143
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• 2008

Candidate images refer to a holistic impression of a candidate which is composed of various dimensions of attributes. This study investigated how online and offline news media, campaign media such as political ads, televised debates, and candidate web-sites, and interpersonal political talk influenced voters' images of a candidate in such dimensions as personal traits, job-performance abilities, and policy capabilities, and further their political decision making in the 17th presidential election in Korea. The analysis focused on President Lee, Myung Bak who won the election by obtaining nearly 50% of the effective votes. According to the data analyses, first, uses of offline newspapers positively influenced voters' images of candidate Lee's personal traits such as his morality, integrity, trustworthiness, and compassion, yet online news uses had an opposite effect on voters' impression of his job-performance and economic policy capabilities. Secondly, among various campaign media, television ads and candidate web-sites positively contributed to the formation of candidate Lee's images, yet showed little direct effect on vote choice, indicating that campaign media mainly indirectly influenced voters' political decision making. Each of the first, second, and third televised candidate debates revealed unique effects on image formation and vote choice. Thirdly, the network size and frequency of political talk negatively influenced image formation regarding candidate Lee's personal traits and economic policy capabilities, yet the discussion network size positively contributed to the Lee votes. Forth, among various dimensions of candidate images, voters' perceptions of candidate Lee's personal traits appeared to be the most significant predictor of the support for him.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.57
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• pp.250-266
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• 2012

In neo-liberalism, the change-value of the market and of the machandise based on the individual as the consumer dominate the public sphere, and the capital power encroach on it. with the technological revolution. At the same time the public sphere as such represent the media sphere, which is more and more subordinate, and have no choice but to do to the governmental authority having political power privatized. The private usage of reason in the public sphere is carried out at the structual level. How can we call such a space in which the private usage of reason is generalized and dominant as the public sphere? And so now, we sound out the possibility of the public sphere such as a new space of the universality where the public usage of reason can be realized without any limits and with free. So, when we imagine the proletarian public sphere, in which co-exist the divers private interests, as a new public sphere capable to be constructed, we can address a question as follow. What is the caracteristic of the proletarian public sphere in modern society?, Is the public community able to be formed and realized in such space? How would have the proletarian public sphere the carateristics of the publis sphere? What is the attribute of the community that the proletarian public sphere would make, and what is its force of emancipation? The power is no longer stable and static. Rather, it is reconstructed and reorganized in the divers phases of the everyday life. It is the reason why we put on the order of the day the proletarian public sphere as alternative public space, which would be a place of divers hegemonic representation. And now, we are aware of the beginning of thses changes.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.49
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• pp.122-143
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• 2010

This study is designed to figure out what kind of female images TV dramas have represented from 2000 to 2007 and what kind of relationship these images and the actual roles the female characters perform have in the drama. The total number of dramas analyzed is 27, and 152 female characters are analyzed. The result finds that 45% among 152 characters is in her 20's, and most of them play the main roles. Only 4 dramas use 3,40's female characters as main figures. Most 4,50 female characters play mother or grand mother roles of main characters, and they usually interrupt main character's love relationships or don't play any meaningful roles for the narrative. The old female characters over her 60's tend to play foolish and ridiculous roles and don't show any physical charms. The female main characters are beautiful and young, and the more they play good roles, they have better natural beauty comparing the bad characters. The youth and beauty of main characters helps the owner to earn the love of main male characters. It's obvious that the dramas show that female's body as physical capital to achieve higher class and power.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.42
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• pp.168-204
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• 2008

According to the spiral of silence theory, perception of opinion climates influences willingness to express one's opinion. This study examines the relationship between opinion perception and opinion expression in different regions and issues. The results show that one's opinion and the intensity of opinion affect the expression of opinion about national and regional issues in Busan and Gwangju. People who perceive their opinions as majority are more willing to express theirs about national and regional issues in Gwangju, but not in Busan. Regression analyses show that perceived public opinion does not predict the expression of opinion in both cities. People who perceive their opinions more favorable about regional issue have lower intention to express their opinions than people who perceive their opinions same as others'. In summary, one's opinion and perception bias about controversial issues are important variables influencing expression of opinion, and the influence of perceived public opinion on opinion expression varies in different regions with different distribution of public opinion. This study found 'new hardcores' who perceive their own opinion as minor but more valuable and have the intention to speak out in places more difficult to express.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.77
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• pp.73-107
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• 2016

The general programming channels, newly introduced around the beginning of the 2010s, have grown into powerful journalistic agencies, the far-reaching social influences of which are not confined by the economic effects within the South Korean media industry. They are now rendered to become part of major socio-political institutions that try to secure their privileges based on broadcast journalism, and to widen their business opportunities through those special kind of social practices. This research has taken a path of theoretical endeavour to devise a conceptual framework that will effectively lead to a series of academic investigation into the socio-political characteristics of general programming channels. To this end, specific attention is paid to such theoretical and conceptual resources as the instrumentalization of media by the politics, the political sociology of media power, media-political parallelism, and the structural coupling between the political and the media systems. This paper suggests that general programming channels have emerged as a new interface that accommodates and actualizes the structural coupling between the two societal subsystems, and in the course of that, they undercut the vulnerable basis of media public sphere, effectively replacing it with entertaining media-political sphere constructed and managed by themselves. This sphere is where the media system's logic and the poltical system's logic are intertwined, simutaneously accelerating not only the mediatization of the politics but also the politicization of the media.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.39
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• pp.178-223
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• 2007

The polarization of public opinion by regionalism is one of biggest problems in Korean society. This study attempts to examine the polarization of public opinion between two typical cities representing regionalism and explore the factors influencing on the polarization. The results show that the polarization of public opinion is based on the perceived public opinion rather than the real public opinion. The polarization of public opinion is greater with regional issue than national issue. In general, citizens of Pusan have a conservative bias in estimating other Pusan citizens' opinion and a liberal bias in estimating Gwangju citizens' opinion, whereas citizens of Gwangju have a looking-glass perception in estimating other Gwangju citizens' opinion and a conservative bias in estimating Pusan citizens' opinion. There are no significant differences of the real public opinion and the perceived opinion across three generations. But within each generation, the tendency of public opinion polarization is found between regions and is not shown to change over generations. Regression analyses show that individual's opinion and region are highly predictable variables that explain the perceived public opinion and the perception bias such as false consensus and pluralistic ignorance.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.66
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• pp.59-86
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• 2014

This study explored how rumor is diffused via Twitter and how the characteristics of rumor affect the interactivity among users in the Korea-U.S. FTA case. A key word search located three issues as major ones related to the Korea-U.S. FTA: appendectomy myth, collapse of health insurance, and increases in medicine prices. The arousal of rumor has two dimensions: fact and expression. The fact arousal was the highest in the issue of 'appendectomy myth', and the expression arousal the highest in 'increases in medicine prices'. The rumor diffusion took the 'explosive wave' in the issue of appendectomy myth, the 'latent wave' in the issue of increase in medicine prices, and the 'repetitive wave' in the issue of collapse of health insurance. Correlation analyses revealed a high correlation between the arousal intensity of rumor and the user interactivity in the issue of collapse of health insurance. The study showed that Twitter took a role of diffusing negative messages about the Korea-U.S. FTA. Results implies that government officials and journalists pay attention to Twitter for sensing the public opinion when building policies and managing crises.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.46
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• pp.323-353
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• 2009

Press (un)fairness has been a social issue in Korea. The previous research focused mainly on the suggestion of fairness norms, principles, concepts, and definitions. Also, the research tried to measure the degree of fairness by analyzing press contents. This study attempted to overcome the media- and source-oriented approach proposing ordinary press consumers' perspectives. The study posited that one's fairness judgment would be greatly influenced by his or her preexisting attitudes on issue. Based on social judgment theory and hostile media perception framework, the research expected 'assimilation' bias for attitudinally congruent group and 'contrast' bias for attitudinally incongruent group. An $3\times3\times2$ experimental design was employed to test the theoretical predictions. The results found assimilation and contrast bias for strong attitude groups who read one-sided and two-sided messages. The results also implied hostile media perception occurred by selective categorization. Also the difficulty and limitation of traditional fairness judgment and media-centered approach was discussed.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.59
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• pp.138-161
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• 2012

This study is designed to explore the function of Twitter as a campaign platform during election campaign. For exploring the function of Twitter the form of tweet, the type of information on tweet and the way of opinion expression via Twitter were discussed by content analysis. This study finds, first, that, netizens express their opoinion of candidates without foundation and with emotional reactions. Second, they showed somewhat conflictive reactions according to their supporting candidates. This study conceptualized various kinds of public as 'blindly support public,' and 'blindly opposition public' in case of Park's supporters, 'rational support public,' and 'critical opposition public' in case of Na's supporters. Third, Park's supporters debated Na candidate's attitude of debate and her appearance blindly without foundation. Na's supporters argued Park's attitude of debate and his ignorance of Seoul Metropolitan government's policy blindly without foundation. Finally, this study discussed the relationship between the political discourse according to netizens' supporting via Twitter and the results of election. Park whose supporters attacked the opposing candidate by blaming her appearance and her attitude of debate won the election. Na didn't overcome her negative images. For her Twitter functioned as a media which is spreading negative factors about her. In conclusion, Twitter as a campaign platform during election times plays a key role in discussing candidates. However, netizens need to express their opinions with foundation and the candidates have to consider negative issue management. This study highlights the importance of peripheral factors which have a decisive effect on the results of election. The results of this study is useful for building political campaign strategy by candidates.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.55
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• pp.5-32
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• 2011

This paper is a comparative analysis of constitutional decisions in which the Korea Consitutional Court and the United States Supreme Court applied the void for vagueness doctrine into free expression issues. Common aspects are: both courts applied the void for vagueness doctrine on the grounds that vague laws bring chilling effect on freedom of expression. Acknowledging inevitable uncertainties in lawmaking and legal jargons, however, both courts required minimum standards in the void for vagueness doctrine. In the cases where unclear legal meanings resulted in constitutional challenges, both courts adopted the "narrowing construction" by the courts or judges based on average/ordinary person's understanding. The biggest differences between the two constitutional courts are their approach to the degrees of vagueness allowed in free expression cases. The U.S. Supreme Court underscored the necessity of narrowly drawn, reasonable and definite standards. Meanwhile, the Korea Constitutional Court relaxed its standards in some cases such as the National Security Law cases, even though it admitted the possibility of curtailing the right to free expression. The Court reasoned that those laws, though vague, brought with bigger social interests and are necessary tools in dealing with changing world.