A Tail that Wags the Dog? Cultural Industry and Cultural Policy in Japan and South Korea

Bibliographic Data

ID7534565
AuthorsNissim Otmazgin (0000-0002-7450-3909, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume13
Issue3
Pages307-325
Publication date2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Comparative Policy Analysis Research and Practice (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1387-6988 • E-ISSN: 1572-5448
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13876988.2011.565916
OpenAlexW2084567869
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited29

How is a policy initiated and implemented toward a newly arising industrial sector? This paper addresses that question by looking at the way the Japanese and the South Korean governments respond to the massive production and export of pop culture. The investigation focuses on the emergence of the local cultural industries, the policy issues they raise, and the domestic discourse they initiate. The central argument of this paper is that these governments no longer perceive the cultural industries in only ideological terms, but following the success of the private sector, they have recently shifted their attention to the economic benefits derived from the commodification of culture. However, their efforts to foster the pop culture sector heavily emphasize investment in infrastructure as a part of a developmental-state strategy. This attitude is too rigid to accommodate the dynamism of the cultural industries and should be supplemented with a more nuanced approach that considers the distinctive structure and the organization of the cultural industries. Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Peter J. Katzenstein, Ehud Harari, Eyal Ben Ari, and three unnamed reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Notes Soft power is a term coined by Joseph Nye to describe the growing importance of non-traditional means a country can wield to influence another country's wants: soft power lies in the ability of a nation to entice, attract, and fascinate other countries and societies, so that, according to Nye (Citation2004a: 15) a country "may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because of other countries admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it". Nye first used this concept to describe America's capabilities, but would later cite examples from Europe, Japan, India, and China (Nye Citation2004b). The definition in this paper is very different from the original use of the term "cultural industries". Originally, the term was used rather narrowly, associated with a radical critique of mass entertainment by members of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1973). The use of this term signaled their disgust at the utilization of media as a mechanical reproduction for propaganda, and emphasized problems in the industrialization of culture. According to this view, when art is being devalued by repackaging it into a mass consumption commodity, it loses its tradition, spirituality, and other supposed moral high ground. For a comprehensive discussion on whether cultural creativity can be managed or not and on whether creativity and business strategy are at odds see Bilton and Cummings (Citation2010). Japan is second only to the United States in cultural production. However, while in the USA cultural manufacturing as a part of the GDP is approximately 5% and the World's average is 3%, in Japan it is only 2%, meaning that there is still potential for this sector to grow in the country's economy (Digital Content Association of Japan Citation2005). Additional informationNotes on contributorsNissim Otmazgin Nissim Kadosh Otmazgin is a Lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies and a Research Fellow at The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his PhD from Kyoto University in 2007. His research interests include Japanese politics, cultural industry and cultural policy, and popular culture and regionalization in East and Southeast Asia

Argument (complex analysis · Commodification · Dynamism · Economics · Economy · Ideology · Industrial policy · Investment (military · Mainstream · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Private sector · Sociology · Soft power · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Cultural Industries and Urban Development · Japanese History and Culture · Law

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