• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.1-48
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• 2013

Taking the cases of Korean garment factories in Binh Duong area, this study aims to explain the phases and causes of the wildcat strikes that have rapidly expanded recently in Vietnam. For the purpose, this study raises several questions as follows. Why the strikes sometimes increase and decrease other times? Why the factory workers prefer a wildcat strike even though it is politically risky, unproductive, and complicated? By the same token, why the foreign management cannot or will not preemptively preclude the wildcat strikes that are usually predictable and the workers are mostly able to accomplish their demands? While answering these questions, this study explores the economic, political, and socio-cultural conditions of the wildcat strikes respectively. Based on the fieldwork in around 30 Korean owned garment factories and the interview with around 100 Vietnamese factory workers in Binh Duong, this study confirms several findings on the phases and causes of the strikes in the area in specific and in Vietnam in general. First, the annual trends of the wildcat strikes reflect the macroeconomic conditions in which the consumer prices and the labor market in Vietnamese economy and business conditions in the world economy are pivotal. Second, however, the influence of macroeconomic conditions on both the management and the workers in the garment factories are differential, depending on the financial situations of the multinational corporations and the workers' capability of reproducing their household economies. Thirdly, the possibility of the wildcat strike in each factory is relatively independent on the financial conditions of a factory and rather associated with the stable political structure and active political processes within the factory that enable the management and the workers to efficiently communicate each other. Lastly, the necessity of establishing political stability in a factory arises from the distinctive social and cultural characteristics of the multinational corporation in which foreign managers and native workers inevitably live in separate and different socio-cultural worlds.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.45
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• pp.77-110
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• 2009

This study explores the academic development of the Political Economy of Communication, which is pursued by reviewing academic characteristics, research subjects, key scholars, formal and informal institution as an academic hub, key articles, major academic associations and academic journals. In addition, this study examines important theoretical limitations and tasks to deal with in the future, which have been exposed through several heated debates with other research traditions such as Cultural Studies and Post Modernism.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.43
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• pp.7-46
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• 2008

The purpose of this essay explores a critical review of the Korean critical communication studies focused on the problematic of cultural studies and political economy in 2000s. The findings are as follows; The 'consumer turn' or 'audience turn' in new revisionism modelling John Fiske's cultural studies has been interpreted not to complement but to substitute the necessary criticism of the post-authoritarian media establishment of Korea at that time, arising identity crisis of Korean cultural studies as one of the critical camp. On other side, however, some political economy studies close to the unilinear theses of orthodox marxism has been appraised to neglect the complex process and structure of media and cultural production as well. While the press war between the market-dominant dailies and some progressive dailies has given rise to a whole debate as expected in consolidating period of Korean emerging democracy, the conjucturalism as modelled by Hall's 'authoritarian populism' failed to initiate a new theo tical practice in Korea. Finally, this review essay propose the some new research issues that would converge cultural studies and political economy, modernism and postmodernism; citizenship vs 'cultural citizenship'(valuing the private identity and gender) or Habermasian public sphere vs 'cultural public sphere', the culture of production, (modern)citizen/(postmodern)consumer(recently debated in English media policy), 'differentiation' in capitalist production and 'difference' in consumer sovereignty, 21c future vision of public service broadcasting as one of the 20c institutions.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.117-128
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• 2013

This study aims to examine various discourses of the urban landscape discussed in the fields of new cultural geography, spatial political economy, and landscape architecture in order to propose a theoretical framework for the interpretation of a contemporary urban landscape. The notion of landscape is a modern idea that separates humans, especially the bourgeois subject, from nature, and then achieves the visual possession of nature. New cultural geographers have studied the political aspects of landscape. According to them, landscape as materialized discourse is "a way of seeing" which includes the vision of the upper class, the imperialistic view, and the masculine and voyeuristic gaze. In addition, spatial political economists have paid attention to the economic aspects of landscape. They have emphasized that the material production of landscape is indispensable in the production of surplus values in the capitalistic system. Thus, we insist focusing dialectically on both the materiality and ideology of landscape.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.137-152
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• 2018

Hofstede cultural value model is one of the most influential model for cross-cultural studies to measure national difference. In this study, we examine that Hofstede Cultural Dimensions can be measured by World Value Surveys. Selected WVS questions for 31 measurable countries after Exploratory Factor Analysis(EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis(CFA), approved valid through empirical analysis. It is applicable that Individualism values(IND) has related to 2 questionnaires including life satisfaction, Power Distance values(PDI) to 2 questionnaires about political action(Signing a petition and Joining in boycotts), Masculinity values(MAS) to 2 sexual-role questionnaires like "University is more important for a boy than for a girl", Uncertainty Avoidance values (UAI) to 3 questionnaires about confidence(Parliament, The Political parties and Justice System), Long-Term Oriented values(LTO) to 4 questionnaires including "How proud of nationality" and Indulgence versus Restraints values (IVR)to 2 questionnaires including Feeling of Happiness.

• Journal of the Economic Geographical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.102-121
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• 2021

Financial geography is an evolving subdiscipline in economic geography. This paper identifies and reviews three important 'waves' constitutive of the current state of financial geography: including the 'first' wave before 1990s when finance was regarded as a byproduct of the over-accumulation process in production sphere in the Marxist geographical political economy tradition; the 'second' wave in the mid-1990s during which financial geography was firmly established as a subdiscipline, influenced by the cultural turn and poststructuralist thoughts; and the most recent 'third' wave after the 2008~2009 global financial crisis that urged financial geographers to take power and politics more seriously and 're-politicize' with the analytical ideas of governmentality and financial subjectification from a neo-Foucauldian perspective. These waves have helped financial geography become a practice-oriented academic discourse, in which different philosophical thoughts, foci of analytical level and object, renditions of the subject, perceptions of power and politics, and geographies of finance and financialization coexist and also compete and contest one another.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.207-216
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• 2019

Unlike previous studies, which mainly analyzed factors affecting tourism motivation and tourism satisfaction, this study analyzes the political, economic and cultural factors affecting the number of Chinese tourists visiting Korea. Empirical results show that political factors such as the Chinese regime, the number of meetings and talks between Korea and China, the number of phone calls between the two countries, and the Korea-China FTA (also as a economic factor) have a significant impact on the number of Chinese tourists visiting Korea. In particular, political friendly variables related to economy (ex. Korea-China FTA) has been analyzed to have a more significant positive effect on the number of Chinese tourists to Korea than the factors that create friendly atmosphere only in the political field. In addition to political factors, economic factors such as the Korea-China FTA, and cultural factors such as Korean Wave represented by Korean cosmetics also have a significant impact on the number of Chinese tourists visiting Korea.

• Asian review of World Histories
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.5-44
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• 2013

This essay offers a historically based critique of the idea of "alternative modernities" that has acquired popularity in scholarly discussions over the last two decades. While significant in challenging Euro/American-centered conceptualizations of modernity, the idea of "alternative modernities" (or its twin, "multiple modernities") is open to criticism in the sense in which it has acquired currency in academic and political circles. The historical experience of Asian societies suggests that the search for "alternatives" long has been a feature of responses to the challenges of Euromodernity. But whereas "alternative" was conceived earlier in systemic terms, in its most recent version since the 1980s cultural difference has become its most important marker. Adding the adjective "alternative" to modernity has important counter-hegemonic cultural implications, calling for a new understanding of modernity. It also obscures in its fetishization of difference the entrapment of most of the "alternatives" claimed--products of the reconfigurations of global power--within the hegemonic spatial, temporal and developmentalist limits of the modernity they aspire to transcend. Culturally conceived notions of alternatives ignore the common structural context of a globalized capitalism which generates but also sets limits to difference. The seeming obsession with cultural difference, a defining feature of contemporary global modernity, distracts attention from urgent structural questions of social inequality and political injustice that have been globalized with the globalization of the regime of neoliberal capitalism. Interestingly, "the cultural turn" in the problematic of modernity since the 1980s has accompanied this turn in the global political economy during the same period. To be convincing in their claims to "alterity", arguments for "alternative modernities" need to re-articulate issues of cultural difference to their structural context of global capitalism. The goal of the discussion is to work out the implications of these political issues for "revisioning" the history and historiography of modernity.

• Journal of Koreanology Reviews
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

Due in large part to the success of 'Korean Wave' (Hallyu) entertainment commodities, there was much discussion concerning the increasing recognition of Korean culture. With the government's help, South Korean pop culture has spread all over the globe, and Korean businesses have flourished thanks to their global competitiveness. The media in the surrounding areas were quick to catch on, and they all but declared the arrival of Hallyu. Despite a tragic and brutal history of invasions, wars, and dictatorships, South Korea has the 14th largest economy and is the 15th most significant country in terms of soft power. This is largely attributable to the country's leadership in technological and cultural revolutions. The enormous economic and political gains South Korea has experienced from its Hallyu phenomenon remain impressive and even threatening to other countries competing with it for cultural dominance. This is even though media figures in the country must constantly keep in mind new ways to maintain relevance and even enhance their favorability, as pop culture trends are transient and sometimes unpredictable. As South Korean culture spread to the West, Hallyu facilitated the export of several cultural artifacts, including classical music, theater, art, literature, and dance. The Baby Shark music video and song were both created by the Korean business Pink Fong.

• Review of Culture and Economy
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.63-83
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• 2018

In the US, there are no governing bodies within the federal executive departments dedicated to the arts and cultural affairs. Direct government subsidies for the arts are relatively small compared to other countries with a comparable economy and standard of living. Nevertheless, the US produces artworks, artists, and arts groups, leading the world's arts and culture. Incorporating the concepts of network governance and shared governance, this paper examines the dynamic roles and interrelationships among various for-profit/nonprofit arts organizations, foundations, councils, service organizations, arts advocacy groups, and professional/amateur associations from the federal to local levels that compose the ecology of American arts and culture. Through our evaluation, we conclude that the local/state/federal arts agencies and arts organizations at various levels influence each other via the principle of subsidiarity and isomorphism, creating a unique cultural policy and arts-supporting system that correspond to the political and social structure and environment of the United States.