• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.74
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• pp.177-196
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• 2015

This paper aims to plan a new research program on the parallel relationship between Korean press and political power, by providing concepts on the mode of existence of professional journalists in Korea. In the midst of the economic crisis of Korean journalism, relative deteriorisation in the political democracy and the liberty of press, and changes in news ecosystem due to the revolution of digital news, the status of professional journalists is at stake. In these circumstances, this paper argues that many existing researches on journalistic professionalism need to be reconstructed in the perspective of professional project. It enables, first of all, an evaluation on actual issues of professional journalists from the actor perspective, i.e. economic interests, social closure, regulative bargain with the authority. Secondly, concerning decoupling phenomenon of journalism and democracy which became salient in the contemporary society, this study raises a necessity to create new logical relations around concepts of journalist professionalism. And we will find, in this situation, a beginning of new evaluation on the mode of existence of professional journalists, that has been possibly developped within the old, assymetric relationship between State-press. And finally, this study proposes to consider a category of professional journalists as a vehicle that helps to conceptualize the old, parallel relationship between Korean press and political power.