Media freedom and responsibility in South Korea

The perceptions of journalists and politicians during the Roh Moo-hyun presidency

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7477315
AutoresQian Gong (0000-0001-8980-4061, University of Leicester, autor de correspondencia), Gary D Rawnsley (0009-0004-3589-091X), Gary Rawnsley (Aberystwyth University)
Año2017
Volumen19
Número9-10
Páginas1257-1274
Fecha de publicación2017-01-22
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournalism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1464-8849 • E-ISSN: 1741-3001
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1464884916688287
OpenAlexW2580249378
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas22

This article analyses the perceptions of media freedom and responsibility by journalists and politicians in South Korea during the Presidency of Roh Moo-huyn (2003–2008). It draws on in-depth interviews with 10 journalists and 10 politicians with different political affiliations and interests. Findings suggest that both groups had positive appraisals of the country’s media democratisation. For them, the media could function as a watchdog on political power without having to fear direct political reprisals for doing so. However, the political press remained partially shackled to specific legacies and economic conditions. The most pressing example is the way the paternal power of conservative media owners challenged the editorial independence of journalists. While the Internet media offered some hope to rebalance the power relationship between the conservative and progressive forces, the sensational and hyper-adversarial media motivated by market and political competition emerged as more worrying concerns for the consolidation of democratic political communication in post-transition South Korea. Setbacks in press freedom since 2008 have undermined some of the positive evaluations of the political communication in South Korea, suggesting that the democratic transition in this country resembles ‘a circle rather a straight line

Democracy · Democratic consolidation · Democratization · Freedom of the press · Independence (probability theory · Media studies · Political communication · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Presidency · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Media Studies and Communication · Social Media and Politics · Law