• Korean Journal of Legislative Studies
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.5-29
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• 2018

This paper aims at making an assessment about the first year of the Moon Jae-in government. President Moon was elected amid political insecurity over the impeachment of then-president Park Geun-hye. However, the Moon administration settled in fairly smoothly despite no transition period of presidential power. Political and economic stability was soon restored, and the tensions between the US and North Korea over the North's nuclear weapons program were, to some extent, managed along with the agreement of the North-South summit and the US-North Korea summit. Pyeongchang hosted the 2018 winter olympics and paralympics successfully. Moon continued very positive approval ratings of higher than 70%. However, he has something to be desired. His leadership seems to rely heavily on a limited number of close staff in the Blue House, alienating the governing the Minjoo Party of Korea. He should build better relationship with opposition parties particularly given a divided government. Rectification of the lingering negative practices should also produce institutional solutions. Above all, Moon should carefully watch out to prevent scandals over corruption and power abuse around him and his family, which would lead to a precipitous decline of the approval ratings and the abrupt weakening of the leadership.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.43
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• pp.289-326
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• 2016

The strategy of "soft power" in the foreign and internal policies of modern Russia is one of the important factors in the implementation of public policies, and the influence of soft power is increasingly becoming stronger and gaining new forms and methods of implementation. The Russian government exerts efforts to form a positive image of Russia in the international arena, in order to strengthen the country's competitiveness, based on active use of "soft power." Currently, Russian cultural policy is developing in two main directions. In the internal policy sphere, the Russian government emphasizes national unity and civic solidarity, and fosters a sense of patriotism and national pride. In the sphere of foreign policy, the Russian government is attempting to regain its status as a great power and to create a new image of Russia that is different from that of the former Soviet Russia. In this article, we examine and analyze various aspects of the hidden political mechanisms involved in mega-sporting events, in particular the Sochi Olympics, from the viewpoint of Russian internal and foreign policy. We address the major functions of mega-sporting events and their influence in the political realm. The political impact of mega-sports projects can even compensate for economic losses incurred during the preparation and hosting of the Olympic games. In this respect, we can define mega-sporting events as one of the main components of soft power; such events reflect the basic directions of internal and foreign policy in post-Soviet Russia, which are to form and promote an image of Russia using national branding. In order to fairly and objectively analyze the recognition and perception held by Russians of the significance of mega-sporting events, in this work, we carefully studied the results of various surveys conducted by the Russian research organization VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center) before and after Russia hosted the Winter Olympic games in Sochi (2014) and the Summer Olympic games in Kazan (2013). Furthermore, on the basis of the ranking of national brands by Simon Anholt (Anholt Nation Brands Index - NBI), and on the basis of the ranking of 100 national brands conducted by the British consulting company "Brand Finance" (Brand Finance Nation Brands 100), we minutely trace the development and qualitative change in Russia's image and the role of the mega-sporting projects. This article also examines the Kremlin's internal and foreign policies that were successfully carried out in practical terms. This study contributes to the understanding of the value of mega-sporting events from the point of view of cultural policy of the current ruling party of Russia. This standpoint allows us to outline the main directions of Russian cultural policy and to suggest perspectives on the branding strategy of modern Russia, including strategies related to consolidating Russia's position in the international arena.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.11
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• pp.575-583
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• 2021

This study aims to analyze Taekwondo trends according to news articles by year by applying topic modeling. In order to examine the Taekwondo trend through media reports, articles including news articles and Taekwondo specialized media articles were collected through Big Kinds of the Korea Press Foundation. The search period was divided into three sections: before 2000, 2001~2010, and 2011~2020. A total of 12,124 items were selected as research data. For topic analysis, pre-processing was performed, and topic analysis was performed using the LDA algorithm. In this case, python 3 was applied for all analysis. First, as a result of analyzing the topics of media articles by year, 'World' was the most common keyword before 2000. 'South and North Korea' was next common and 'Olympic' was the third commonest topic. From 2001 to 2010, 'World' was the most common topic, followed by 'Association' and 'World Taekwondo'. From 2011 to 2020, 'World', 'Demonstration', and 'Kukkiwon' was the most common topic in that order. Second, as a result of analyzing news articles before 2000 by topic modeling, topics were divided into two categories. Specifically, Topic 1 was selected as 'South-North Korea sports exchange' and Topic 2 was selected as 'Adoption of Olympic demonstration events'. Third, as a result of analyzing news articles from 2001 to 2010 by topic modeling, three topics were selected. Topic 1 was selected as 'Taekwondo Demonstration Performance and Corruption', Topic 2 was selected as 'Muju Taekwondo Park Creation', and Topic 3 was selected as 'World Taekwondo Festival'. Fourth, as a result of analyzing news articles from 2011 to 2020 by topic modeling, three topics were selected. Topic 1 was selected as 'Successful Hosting of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics', Topic 2 was selected as 'North-South Korea Taekwondo Joint Demonstration Performance', and Topic 3 was selected as '2017 Muju World Taekwondo Championships'.