Gwang Ok
Biographic Data
| ID | 4988089 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gwang Ok |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gwang |
| FAMILY NAME | Ok |
| SIGNATURE | OK G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Chungbuk National University |
| ORCID | 0009-0003-9352-9439 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 30 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 32 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The Socio-Cultural Legacy of Mega-Sports Events in Korea
South Korea is one of the few countries to have hosted the full spectrum of global mega-sport events, including the Summer and Winter Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. This study examines the socio-cultural legacy of three landmark events – the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the 2002 Korea–Japan FIFA World Cup, and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Drawing on historical documents, media discourse, and scholarly literature, the study analyzes how th…
Korean Sport Historiography
The history of Asian sport historiography ... remains an unexplored subject ... The existing problems undermining the development of Asian sport history studies call for self examination in the field ......
From vision to action
The Origin and Significance of the Korean Boy Scout Movement during the Japanese Occupation
In the early twentieth century, the Boy Scout Movement gained prominence as a worldwide boys’ movement. The movement, which was created during the Edwardian era to defend and maintain the British Empire, spread internationally in accordance with each nation’s disparate political and social needs. From this perspective, the Joseon (Korea’s national name during the Japanese colonial period) Boy Scout Movement emerged rapidly as a base for practical…
The Legacy of Sports Nationalism in South Korean Sport
Has sports nationalism policy moved South Korea’s cultural ecosystem backward? South Korea’s sports nationalism policy began in the 1960s with an aim to restore its tarnished national pride. With the government’s full support, the policy served as momentum to lay South Korea’s unique institutional foundation to grow into a sports powerhouse, resulting in the enactment of the National Sports Promotion Act, opening of the national team training cam…
The Early Cultural Evolution of Baseball in Korea (1876–1945)
The dissemination of sports culture is not a unilinear or unilateral phenomenon. It depends on how the recipients perceive and react to it in the context of their lives. This study aims to shed light on the complex political, social, and cultural processes that led to the acceptance and popularization of baseball in Korea. In the era of imperialism, various modern sports cultures spread in the Korean society, but baseball emerged as the most popu…
The development of sports industry in South Korea, 2009–2016
In this study, changes and trends in South Korea’s sports industry were examined to explore the effects of South Korea’s sports industry on the country’s economic growth. To this end, specific topics—such as the definition and characteristics of South Korea’s sports industry, the classification system for the country’s sports industry, and economic implications presented from the examination of the annual status of the country’s sports industry—w…
Sport and Body Cultures in East and Southeast Asia
This book, Sport and Body Cultures in East and Southeast Asia, discusses the important role of sport in the social development and physical culture of nine countries in East and Southeast Asia. The
Introduction of Golf to Korea during the Japanese Occupation
Golf was developed in Korea between the late nineteenth century and the early 20th century. This was a dark period for the country, during which its name was changed from the Joseon Dynasty to the Korean Empire, and the nation subsequently entered the Japanese colonial era after losing its national sovereignty. The game of golf, which was first introduced by the foreign maritime customs staff at the end of the Joseon Dynasty, spread across upper …
The Triple Asian Olympics - Asia Rising
1. Preface - Korean Conjunction: A Meeting of East and West Prologue 2. The New Asia: Global Transformation, Regional Ascendancy and Metaphorical Modernity Part One - Emerging Asia: Sport as a Metaphor for Geopolitical Change 3. East Asian Olympic Desires: Identity on the Global Stage in the 1964 Tokyo, 1988 Seoul and 2008 Beijing Games 4. East Asian Olympics, Beijing 2008, and the Globalization of Sport 5. Catching Up: Understanding the Pursuit …
Japanese Imperialism: Politics and Sport in East Asia
Japanese Imperial Sport as Failed Cultural Conditioning
The Heritagization and Institutionalization of Taekkyeon
Taekkyeon, a Korean traditional martial art focussing on the harmony of the individual and community has been listed as the first martial art of the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2011. Though taekkyeon involves competitive elements as a martial art, taekkyeon masters and practitioners have emphasized its natural and playful characteristics, with connecting the peace of the inner self and the unity o…
The Political Transformation of Golf in Modern South Korea
Since golf was introduced to South Korea in the early 1900s, it has been strongly influenced by the politics that reflects socio-political contexts. Therefore, it is important to explore the political influences of golf on the context of its socio-political transformation. In this study, we explored how social and political backgrounds under each of the political administrations have affected the development of golf in South Korea. For this purpo…
The Evolution and Cultural Characteristics of Korean Professional Soccer
Since it was introduced in the late nineteenth century, soccer has been one of the cultural driving forces for Koreans in overcoming national hardships during the dark ages marked by imperial occupations, war, and division during the modern era. This study was carried out to investigate the cultural backgrounds and characteristics due to which soccer has entered an era of professionalization under the name of the Super League. Korean professional…
Social Integration of North Korean Refugees through Sport in South Korea
South and North Koreans, separated for more than 60 years since the Korean War, show marked sociocultural differences despite their shared ethnicity. North Korean residents, who are isolated from international society and struggle to survive amid severe food shortages, sometimes seek to escape the country. In this study, how sports institutions contribute to the social unity of South Korea through the re-socialization of North Korean refugees who…
Power, politics and international events
Power, politics and international events: socio-cultural analyses of festivals and spectacles." Leisure Studies, 36(4), pp. 602–603
The Role of Gukgung in the Success of South Korean Archery
South Korean archery has a remarkable history performed on a global stage, with the Olympic women’s archery team having won seven times consecutively. The Korea National Archery Association joined the Fédération Internationale de Tir à l’Arc (FITA) as a result of a national government policy but there are several factors that have made Korean archery successful, including active investments from Korean conglomerates, national sports promotion pol…
Martial Arts and Ideology of Hwarang, the Ancient Korean Warrior
From 37 BC to 676 AD, an era called the period of the Three States, ancient Korea was divided into Koguryo, Baekje and Shilla. Among these states, Shilla was the one that terminated the period and founded a single united nation. At the background of this unification, there were the prominent activities of Hwarang, an elite warrior group. The purpose of this study is to verify the characteristics of Hwarang’s martial arts and the ideological backg…
Hosting International Events and Promoting South Korean Identity Discourses
More than six decades after the end of the Korean War (1950–53), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) continue to face each other across the highly fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula. Both Korean governments continue to maintain and reinforce a pan-Korean identity amongst its respective populations. At the same time, both states need to provide its respect…
From Development of Sport to Development through Sport
During the past several decades, South Korea has gained tremendous international recognition by achieving an excellent performance in a variety of international sport competitions and hosting numerous mega-sporting events. Although success in elite sport (i.e. Development of Sport approach) has contributed to making South Korea one of the sport powerhouses in the world, South Korea has paid very little attention to the role that sport can play as…
Extraterritorial Outlet of Korean Nationalism in the Far Eastern Championship Games, 1913–1934
The Far Eastern Championship Games (FECG), held between 1913 and 1934, were a precursor to the Asian Games and among the first international athletic competitions in the Asian region. The FECG were launched in Manila, the Philippines, and supported by the Young Mens' Christian Association. Three countries participated in the Games: the Philippines, Japan and China. It is noteworthy that Korea, one of most powerful sports entities in Asia now, als…
A War Without Weapons
The Japanese colonial period was a critical time in the introduction and development of modern sport in Korea. A range of modern sports was introduced to colonial Korea by Western missionaries and the Japanese. The political circumstance of usurpation caused sport to develop by Koreans linking it with a nationalist movement. Rugby, one of the sports introduced during this era, was a crucial vehicle in Koreans expressing their national superiority…
Football in Asia
Younghan Cho edited and published the book, Football in Asia: History, Culture and Business, as a special volume in the ‘Sport in the Global Society: Contemporary Perspectives’ series. It is an opp
Cultural Evolution and Ideology in Korean Soccer
Modern Korean sports have been adopted mostly from the West, but now Korea has emerged as a sporting power demanding global attention. The influence of historical and political ideology has been in the cultural background of Korean sports development, and the process of cultural evolution in soccer may be explained in the similar context. What helped the Korean soccer team qualify for the World Cup eight consecutive times – only the sixth country…
The Political Significance of Sport
I appreciate the support and thoughts of Prof. J.A. Mangan as I developed this project carried out during my doctorate course at Strathclyde University. I first met Professor Mangan on one of his visits to Korean universities in the 1990s. It was a significant meeting. Discussions with him, as I took him from university to university, on the importance of sport in modern global politics consolidated my choice of future study and future doctoral s…
From Development of Sport to Development through Sport
During the past several decades, South Korea has gained tremendous international recognition by achieving an excellent performance in a variety of international sport competitions and hosting numerous mega-sporting events. Although success in elite sport (i.e. Development of Sport approach) has contributed to making South Korea one of the sport powerhouses in the world, South Korea has paid very little attention to the role that sport can play as…
Coercion for Asian conquest
In the third phase of Japanese colonialism in Korea, from 1937 to 1945, after the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan became a militaristic state. It expanded onto the Asian mainland. Korea was an important military base in this military expansion. The colonial policy shifted from cultural amalgamation to military oppression. This period was the darkest and the most oppressive colonial period. In the line with the new colonial policy, the government…
From the destruction of image to the reconstruction of image
South Korea rose from the ashes of a horrendous civil war by way of, among other things, the Saemaul Movement and the Five Year Economic Plan and after three decades of impressive economic growth that left North Korea trailing in its wake, the new nation was able to host etc, that the nation was able to host the Olympic games of 1988 – emblem of astounding recovery, evidence of a successful entry into capitalism, statement of extraordinary nation…
The Heritagization and Institutionalization of Taekkyeon
Taekkyeon, a Korean traditional martial art focussing on the harmony of the individual and community has been listed as the first martial art of the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2011. Though taekkyeon involves competitive elements as a martial art, taekkyeon masters and practitioners have emphasized its natural and playful characteristics, with connecting the peace of the inner self and the unity o…
Social Integration of North Korean Refugees through Sport in South Korea
South and North Koreans, separated for more than 60 years since the Korean War, show marked sociocultural differences despite their shared ethnicity. North Korean residents, who are isolated from international society and struggle to survive amid severe food shortages, sometimes seek to escape the country. In this study, how sports institutions contribute to the social unity of South Korea through the re-socialization of North Korean refugees who…
Beijing 2008
The Beijing Olympics have been watched closely by the South Korean media. In this paper its response to anticipated Chinese dominance of the Games, not least on the part of women, will be monitored, collated and analysed. Of particular interest is the South Korean media's extrapolation of expected Chinese dominance to future geo-political circumstances in the Western Pacific Rim and the possible consequences for South Korea. Are the Beijing Olymp…
The Legacy of Sports Nationalism in South Korean Sport
Has sports nationalism policy moved South Korea’s cultural ecosystem backward? South Korea’s sports nationalism policy began in the 1960s with an aim to restore its tarnished national pride. With the government’s full support, the policy served as momentum to lay South Korea’s unique institutional foundation to grow into a sports powerhouse, resulting in the enactment of the National Sports Promotion Act, opening of the national team training cam…
Cultural Evolution and Ideology in Korean Soccer
Modern Korean sports have been adopted mostly from the West, but now Korea has emerged as a sporting power demanding global attention. The influence of historical and political ideology has been in the cultural background of Korean sports development, and the process of cultural evolution in soccer may be explained in the similar context. What helped the Korean soccer team qualify for the World Cup eight consecutive times – only the sixth country…
East Reflects on West, East Meets West
London 2012 was a contradiction of Kipling's meretricious couplet about East and West. What was the response of the East, specifically the South Korean media, to London's selection as the host city of the 2012 Olympics? Furthermore, what were the various viewpoints of the South Korean media regarding the significance of London hosting the Olympic Games hard on the heels of the Beijing Olympics? Answers to these questions can provide insights into…
Seoul'88 – Media, Politicians, Public
A truism: the media is frequently an instrument of politicians and politics – and so is sport! To what extent was this true of the Seoul Olympics? To what extent did the media follow the politicians and use the Games as a means of raising up (in all senses) a depressed nation devastated by war? Was media support uniform in the period prior to the Games in its support for the despotic military regime so influential in ensuring the success of the S…
The Disturbance of War’
The origin of Korean identity, Dongee was representing a race dwelling in the east of Chinese ancient territory and the race was well equipped with advanced bows. Later, the Korean ancient state, Goguryeo had a technology to be able to make horn bows and bush clover tree arrows utilizing irons. Its advanced technology and performance were essential and efficient to protect the state against the Northern invaders. The well-created technology was s…
The Political Significance of Sport
I appreciate the support and thoughts of Prof. J.A. Mangan as I developed this project carried out during my doctorate course at Strathclyde University. I first met Professor Mangan on one of his visits to Korean universities in the 1990s. It was a significant meeting. Discussions with him, as I took him from university to university, on the importance of sport in modern global politics consolidated my choice of future study and future doctoral s…
Coercion for Asian conquest
In the third phase of Japanese colonialism in Korea, from 1937 to 1945, after the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Japan became a militaristic state. It expanded onto the Asian mainland. Korea was an important military base in this military expansion. The colonial policy shifted from cultural amalgamation to military oppression. This period was the darkest and the most oppressive colonial period. In the line with the new colonial policy, the government…
The Disturbance of War’
The origin of Korean identity, Dongee was representing a race dwelling in the east of Chinese ancient territory and the race was well equipped with advanced bows. Later, the Korean ancient state, Goguryeo had a technology to be able to make horn bows and bush clover tree arrows utilizing irons. Its advanced technology and performance were essential and efficient to protect the state against the Northern invaders. The well-created technology was s…
Beijing 2008
The Beijing Olympics have been watched closely by the South Korean media. In this paper its response to anticipated Chinese dominance of the Games, not least on the part of women, will be monitored, collated and analysed. Of particular interest is the South Korean media's extrapolation of expected Chinese dominance to future geo-political circumstances in the Western Pacific Rim and the possible consequences for South Korea. Are the Beijing Olymp…
Preface
From the destruction of image to the reconstruction of image
South Korea rose from the ashes of a horrendous civil war by way of, among other things, the Saemaul Movement and the Five Year Economic Plan and after three decades of impressive economic growth that left North Korea trailing in its wake, the new nation was able to host etc, that the nation was able to host the Olympic games of 1988 – emblem of astounding recovery, evidence of a successful entry into capitalism, statement of extraordinary nation…
Seoul'88 – Media, Politicians, Public
A truism: the media is frequently an instrument of politicians and politics – and so is sport! To what extent was this true of the Seoul Olympics? To what extent did the media follow the politicians and use the Games as a means of raising up (in all senses) a depressed nation devastated by war? Was media support uniform in the period prior to the Games in its support for the despotic military regime so influential in ensuring the success of the S…
East Reflects on West, East Meets West
London 2012 was a contradiction of Kipling's meretricious couplet about East and West. What was the response of the East, specifically the South Korean media, to London's selection as the host city of the 2012 Olympics? Furthermore, what were the various viewpoints of the South Korean media regarding the significance of London hosting the Olympic Games hard on the heels of the Beijing Olympics? Answers to these questions can provide insights into…
The Two Koreas and the Politics of Global Sport
Cultural Evolution and Ideology in Korean Soccer
Modern Korean sports have been adopted mostly from the West, but now Korea has emerged as a sporting power demanding global attention. The influence of historical and political ideology has been in the cultural background of Korean sports development, and the process of cultural evolution in soccer may be explained in the similar context. What helped the Korean soccer team qualify for the World Cup eight consecutive times – only the sixth country…
From Development of Sport to Development through Sport
During the past several decades, South Korea has gained tremendous international recognition by achieving an excellent performance in a variety of international sport competitions and hosting numerous mega-sporting events. Although success in elite sport (i.e. Development of Sport approach) has contributed to making South Korea one of the sport powerhouses in the world, South Korea has paid very little attention to the role that sport can play as…
Extraterritorial Outlet of Korean Nationalism in the Far Eastern Championship Games, 1913–1934
The Far Eastern Championship Games (FECG), held between 1913 and 1934, were a precursor to the Asian Games and among the first international athletic competitions in the Asian region. The FECG were launched in Manila, the Philippines, and supported by the Young Mens' Christian Association. Three countries participated in the Games: the Philippines, Japan and China. It is noteworthy that Korea, one of most powerful sports entities in Asia now, als…
A War Without Weapons
The Japanese colonial period was a critical time in the introduction and development of modern sport in Korea. A range of modern sports was introduced to colonial Korea by Western missionaries and the Japanese. The political circumstance of usurpation caused sport to develop by Koreans linking it with a nationalist movement. Rugby, one of the sports introduced during this era, was a crucial vehicle in Koreans expressing their national superiority…
Football in Asia
Younghan Cho edited and published the book, Football in Asia: History, Culture and Business, as a special volume in the ‘Sport in the Global Society: Contemporary Perspectives’ series. It is an opp
The Role of Gukgung in the Success of South Korean Archery
South Korean archery has a remarkable history performed on a global stage, with the Olympic women’s archery team having won seven times consecutively. The Korea National Archery Association joined the Fédération Internationale de Tir à l’Arc (FITA) as a result of a national government policy but there are several factors that have made Korean archery successful, including active investments from Korean conglomerates, national sports promotion pol…
Martial Arts and Ideology of Hwarang, the Ancient Korean Warrior
From 37 BC to 676 AD, an era called the period of the Three States, ancient Korea was divided into Koguryo, Baekje and Shilla. Among these states, Shilla was the one that terminated the period and founded a single united nation. At the background of this unification, there were the prominent activities of Hwarang, an elite warrior group. The purpose of this study is to verify the characteristics of Hwarang’s martial arts and the ideological backg…
Hosting International Events and Promoting South Korean Identity Discourses
More than six decades after the end of the Korean War (1950–53), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea (ROK) continue to face each other across the highly fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula. Both Korean governments continue to maintain and reinforce a pan-Korean identity amongst its respective populations. At the same time, both states need to provide its respect…
The Evolution and Cultural Characteristics of Korean Professional Soccer
Since it was introduced in the late nineteenth century, soccer has been one of the cultural driving forces for Koreans in overcoming national hardships during the dark ages marked by imperial occupations, war, and division during the modern era. This study was carried out to investigate the cultural backgrounds and characteristics due to which soccer has entered an era of professionalization under the name of the Super League. Korean professional…
Social Integration of North Korean Refugees through Sport in South Korea
South and North Koreans, separated for more than 60 years since the Korean War, show marked sociocultural differences despite their shared ethnicity. North Korean residents, who are isolated from international society and struggle to survive amid severe food shortages, sometimes seek to escape the country. In this study, how sports institutions contribute to the social unity of South Korea through the re-socialization of North Korean refugees who…
Power, politics and international events
Power, politics and international events: socio-cultural analyses of festivals and spectacles." Leisure Studies, 36(4), pp. 602–603
The Triple Asian Olympics - Asia Rising
1. Preface - Korean Conjunction: A Meeting of East and West Prologue 2. The New Asia: Global Transformation, Regional Ascendancy and Metaphorical Modernity Part One - Emerging Asia: Sport as a Metaphor for Geopolitical Change 3. East Asian Olympic Desires: Identity on the Global Stage in the 1964 Tokyo, 1988 Seoul and 2008 Beijing Games 4. East Asian Olympics, Beijing 2008, and the Globalization of Sport 5. Catching Up: Understanding the Pursuit …
Japanese Imperialism: Politics and Sport in East Asia
Japanese Imperial Sport as Failed Cultural Conditioning
The Heritagization and Institutionalization of Taekkyeon
Taekkyeon, a Korean traditional martial art focussing on the harmony of the individual and community has been listed as the first martial art of the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2011. Though taekkyeon involves competitive elements as a martial art, taekkyeon masters and practitioners have emphasized its natural and playful characteristics, with connecting the peace of the inner self and the unity o…
The Political Transformation of Golf in Modern South Korea
Since golf was introduced to South Korea in the early 1900s, it has been strongly influenced by the politics that reflects socio-political contexts. Therefore, it is important to explore the political influences of golf on the context of its socio-political transformation. In this study, we explored how social and political backgrounds under each of the political administrations have affected the development of golf in South Korea. For this purpo…
Political science (30 works) · Law (26 works) · Law (24 works) · Politics (23 works) · Sociology (21 works) · History (19 works) · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts (18 works) · History (15 works) · Sports, Gender, and Society (14 works) · Asian Culture and Media Studies (10 works)