By Emanuel Pastreich
Virtually every critical issue facing Korea today is completely omitted from the Korean major media, or reported on in a marginal or superficial manner. The trend has grown stronger over the last ten years, reaching the point where citizens find it impossible to ascertain the true state of affairs from what the media presents them with.
We are, in short, facing a tremendous crisis in Korea — and around the world — wherein the essential system for providing citizens with reliable and relevant news about their neighborhoods, their regions, the nation and the world has completely collapsed. This crisis a security crisis in that, if citizens cannot judge how Korea is being manipulated by foreign nations, international banks, or hidden forces, they are unable to judge how the nation should respond to current threats. The breakdown of journalism also causes the democratic process to collapse. If citizens cannot obtain reliable information about actual policy and are forced to rely on sensationalist reporting about the personalities of politicians and personal scandals, they are incapable of voting in a meaningful manner. Elections are reduced to rituals in which formerly engaged citizens are actively encouraged to be self-indulgent and to follow their whims and impulses, watching dancing shows on street corners in the run up to the elections rather than taking part in meaningful discussion with their neighbors about policy and taking the time to inform themselves about critical issues.
Let us take a look at the most serious issues facing Korea today:
1) The unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny group of the wealthy in Korea, and around the world.
2) The overwhelming threat of runaway climate change, now and over the next twenty years as documented through careful scientific inquiry. The specific immediate implications:
Growing semi-arid conditions in South Korea and even more in North Korea, coupled with extreme water shortages, which will become much worse over the next decade.
Rising sea levels and the devastation of marine life by warming oceans.
Rising temperatures that will bring new diseases, reduce agricultural productivity, and make imported food to Korea vastly more expensive.
The striking rise in illnesses among citizens due to an increasing use of coal power in Korea, and the self-regulation of factories by corporations that leaves the government and the public in the dark as to what kinds of pollution factories produce.
3) The growing militarization of the United States, the drive for war with Russia or China within the American establishment, coupled with the death of American diplomacy and its previous idealistic contributions to international cooperation.
4) The devastating East China Sea oil spill, which is poisoning fish off the coast of Korea and is causing damage in Jeju and most likely elsewhere.
5) The collapse of the local economy in Korea, especially in small towns, and the closing down of family-run businesses, especially groceries and restaurants, around the nation.
6) The impending collapse of the lucrative market for Korean smart phones, automobiles, steel, and ships that have been assumed by state planners to the be the core engine for Korean economic growth for decades (and the lack of any viable replacements).
7) The end of long-term employment with full benefits. Youth now face a risky and uncertain future and they often start out their lives saddled with debt.
You would have to look carefully to find any references to these critical issues in the newspapers or TV broadcasts in Korea. Although occasionally some aspects of these issues, which ought to be on the front page of every newspaper every day, are treated in an anecdotal manner, there is little investigative journalism that explains how the problems began, what is involved now, and what precisely needs to be done to solve the problems. In fact, most journalists are under such pressure to produce superficial and disposable articles for immediate consumption that they are not permitted to engage in journalism.
First and foremost, we must recognize that journalism is not a business and that making money is not the purpose of journalism. Journalism should present accurate information to the public and encourage citizens to increase their intellectual and ethical engagement with society, rather than stupifying the citizenry by appealing to base instincts of appetite for food and sex.
That is to say, journalism and media are not products to be sold, but rather a form of education, with a focus on ethics, artistic and literary expression, and engagement with the critical issues of our age at the local, national, and international levels. How many people consume news reports is beside the point. Whether we can inform citizens about critical issues and encourage them to reach a higher level of mindfulness and social commitment is essential.
We must confront the most obvious problem first: the reliance of media on advertising. Advertising inherently skews journalism because it subjects reporting primarily to the financial interests of its advertisers and not to the search for truth and ethical commitment. The result is a predictable attempt to maintain a façade of a happy society without any serious problems throughout the reporting process, with more serious crises treated as if they were freaks of nature rather than the product of systemic, economic, or structural problems that require one to step back and contemplate carefully historical and cultural factors.
Advertising also has a direct impact on citizens because all news content to which citizens are exposed in newspapers and magazines, and especially on TV, is found interspersed with images of people engaged in indulgent and selfish behavior, consuming and satisfying their desires without any care for society or nation. Although advertising is not journalism, it has the same, or greater, impact on readers because graphics as employed in advertisement is of higher quality than that used in reporting and is designed to grab the attention of the reader.
There is little connection between the images found in advertising and the reality of Korean society today. No mention of the value of sacrifice, of restraint, of modesty, and of commitment to ideals that go beyond the cult of the self. Recently advertising has taken a distinct turn for the worse by portraying almost exclusively images of the rich living in luxurious homes. The underlying assumption of these commercials is that one must be rich, self-indulgent, and superficial to have a life worthy of attention. These advertisements never show the lives of ordinary citizens, let alone the experiences of the poor or the working classes. The underlying assumption is that the tremendous polarization of wealth in Korean society is only the more reason for all Koreans to envy and admire those who drift purposelessly from one expensive coffee shop to another.
What went wrong?
It only deepens our sense of missed opportunity when we reflect that Korea already possesses all that would be required to establish the best standard of journalism in the world. The literacy rate for the country is one of the highest, as is the percentage of citizens with advanced training, including many PhDs. The sophistication of Korean journalists is quite high, including the knowledge of multiple foreign languages by many among them. So also there are many university professors and lecturers at Korean universities who have advanced degrees from elite universities abroad and have the training to engage in meaningful analysis and explanation of important topics for a general audience.
There are cultural traditions in Korea, unfortunately, that have led intellectuals in Korea to see their specialized knowledge as a source of class status, rather than as a moral imperative to help their fellow citizens. That regrettable habit goes far back in history.
But structural issues are even more important. In the case of journalists, thousands of highly educated people working at large national newspapers, and also at local newspapers, spend their days responding to speeches by government officials or corporations and then go back to offices to pound out articles that are virtually identical in content. Rather than being allowed to develop expertise in specific fields and engage in thoughtful investigative journalism over weeks, or even months, that would produce meaningful analysis and concrete proposals for significant policy improvements, highly educated journalists are trapped in a mouse's exercise wheel of rapid transcription.
The situation for professors is not much better and is quickly deteriorating. Writing for the public, lecturing for ordinary citizens, engaging in any activities aimed at ordinary citizens is actively discouraged. The only writing that is recognized as valuable by the university is the academic article for an SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) journal. Most people have never read a SSCI journal article in their lives and if you want to read one you must pay a fee even though the research that supports such publications is funded by your taxes. Writing such academic journals is not option for a scholar, but are demanded without concern for whether the article has any significance or whether the professor writes for a general audience as well.
The situation is particularly bad in rural areas where universities, the only site of intellectual inquiry, are quickly being shut down quickly, and newspapers focused on careful investigative journalism about local issues are virtually nonexistent. The so-called conservative trends among certain voting groups, and especially among older voters, can be traced back to the extremely low quality of the media sources that they rely on, and not so much an inherent bias.
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the current approach to journalism is the embrace of technology as an imperative and a solution. It is vaguely assumed, without any particular proof, that moving to technologically more advanced formats is something that must be done, and that it will somehow improve the nature of journalism. If you look at magazines from the 1950s and 1960s in Korea you will find far more detailed descriptions of how the world works, the nature of natural phenomena and the actual functioning of government than you will find in current journalism. We have clearly gone downhill since the days of those exclusively printed magazines. Even supposedly critical journals like Sisa-in are increasingly glossy and lacking in critical analysis.
Technology-driven media seeks to grab the attention of the consumer and thus encourages superficial reading. Images are employed to stimulate the brain to release the neurochemical dopamine, thus creating a sensation of meaningfulness in an act which is of marginal importance. Such repeated action can lead to addictive behavior. The situation is made worse by the assumption that the reader is a customer who must be lured through tricks, rather than a citizen to be reasoned with.
So serious is the negative impact of smart phones and social networks that they may ultimately not be the basis for the building up of informed citizens through the Internet, but rather the primary cause of a terrifying wave of anti-intellectualism in Korean society. We should take steps to limit the use of smart phones and of frivolous social media and to make sure that both are used primarily for healthy activities related to understanding contemporary society and working to improve it. We need to make technology part of a larger project for forming positive communities so that citizens use social networks to share valuable information about important issues, rather than post photographs of fat kittens or café lattes with slices of cheese cakes.
What we must do next
Creating a viable media is a massive and long-term project which can only be pursued if citizens have a strong understanding of what the problems with the media are and can move beyond the current culture of denial and avoidance of hard issues. As citizens get their information through the media in the first place, the process will not be an easy one in any sense.
The first step towards creating a healthy and useful journalism must begin at the local level. We need to create local newspapers that provide relevant news for citizens and that are coordinated with seminars at the local level, open to all citizens, that address in an analytic manner important economic and social issues at the local, national, and international levels.
Bringing the public into the discussion on current events can make the news relevant again. We must assume that, after a generation of citizens has now become accustomed to a commercial media focused on an "attention economy," it will be necessary to teach citizens how to concentrate and how to engage in effective journalism in their own lives, both through what they write for each other, and how they read, and share, what they find in newspapers.
We need to train our citizens as reporters from elementary school who will write down what they see in an objective manner and make suggestions to the community as to how we can address local problems. This act of identifying and describing one's own neighborhood, and actively suggesting improvements on the part of all citizens, will create a greater journalism community that can support journalism in the future. Schools should encourage young people to learn for themselves about the economic, social, and cultural shifts taking place in their own neighborhoods. Investigative reporting and thoughtful analysis of the world around us should be a part of education and the content of textbooks should be directly related to community and national issues.
The key to good journalism is purposely avoiding sensationalism and excitement and focusing on the employment of a scientific approach in the analysis of our world, and engaging in that analysis in a cooperative manner with fellow students. That must be at the core of the educational system. All middle schools and high schools should have newspapers and writing for the newspaper should be an essential part of one's grades for school.
Above all, a new culture of awareness and activism at the local level must be encouraged that will support the renaissance of journalism. Such a change in habit, however, cannot happen overnight. It will take considerable effort and there will be a transitional period during which there are many poorly attended local seminars for citizens. If we demonstrate long-term commitment and we launch a meaningful movement for citizens' engagement in policy and analysis, it is entirely possible to make such a shift in thinking into a reality.
Currently, such a local community to support citizen journalism is almost non-existent. Most people do not know their neighbors' names and almost never meet up with neighbors to discuss current social, economic, and cultural concerns. They are trapped within a consumer mentality that makes them passive recipients of information produced by third parties who make little effort to engage in analysis and explanation, or rigorous questioning, of what is happening in their communities. But symbolic steps can be taken to encourage experts from local colleges, or journalists, or local businessmen and government officials, to lead the discussions on important issues that give citizens a sense that they are part of an active intellectual community.
Once citizens are involved in the production of journalism, it will become a habit to write, and to look for more information (with a critical eye) elsewhere. Newspapers are dying not only because they compete with free on-line content, but also because they are non-participatory. Citizens will pay for newspapers if they find the content to be valuable to their daily lives and if they see the reporting in them as a vital part of the community they inhabit. A bookshelf that you make yourself is more valuable than one that you buy and the same is true for journalism.
Journalism cooperatives
Korea might first take the step of moving away from a dependency on advertising and for-profit journalism and start to create cooperatives for research and journalistic efforts. Currently we have so-called progressive media which is also addicted to advertising revenue and cannot tackle hard topics head-on. But journalism collectives supported by membership could do so effectively without a need to grab attention.
If citizens pay to become members of cooperatives dedicated to providing accurate information through journalism and attend occasional seminars that address issues of concern to them, they will feel a real incentive to support those cooperatives. Some might argue that such organizations already exist, but based on my experience as a member of three progressive NGOs that supposedly played such a role, it is not a reality. You can pay 10,000 Won a month to be a member of an NGO and receive occasional emails, but you cannot propose topics for seminars to be held, you cannot easily contribute content, and the people running the NGOs do not consult with you about what they are doing or invite you to regular events to discuss issues of concern to you in your neighborhood. This member-as-customer attitude must stop.
We will be facing a period of deep financial difficulties over the years ahead and media sources that do not have deep roots in local cooperatives will find it hard to survive. I anticipate that much of the so-called progressive media will die off at precisely the moment that it is most needed. Why? The problem has to do with the ownership of media sources. It is not sufficient for a newspaper or television program to be privately owned by an an open-minded person. The pressure to respond to market forces will encourage even the most critical and well-meaning journals to turn to a sensationalist and predictable formula in their writing.
Nor is it a good idea to rely on the beneficence of the wealthy to fund alternative media through occasional donations. Such a dependency can lead to a journalism which addresses only issues of interest to progressive-minded elite but of little relevance to ordinary workers — who are increasingly not reading newspapers at all. It is essential to engage all citizens, not just a highly educated minority.
One possible approach is the establishment of a micro-share program for new media. The ownership of the newspaper would be broken up into shares and micro-shares (fractional shares) and citizen reporters, or professional reporters, would be rewarded for the articles they contribute with micro-shares each time they write. Over time, ten or twenty articles, or more, could add up to be a significant stake in the company itself and the value of those shares would increase over time because of the efforts of the journalists. There would not be any outside stock owners for the newspapers to report to. Reporters would not only be paid by the newspaper; they would own it. Such an approach could create effective and independent journalism in Korea, and I am sure many journalists from major newspapers would welcome such an approach.
The role of government
As the renowned journalism expert Robert McChesney has stressed in his writings, ultimately, government has a vital role to play in the development of meaningful journalism. Only with some form of government support can we assure that objective journalism is available for the general public, instead of journalism aimed at creating a mood among the population that is in accord with the needs of the corporations that pay for advertising.
The use of government funding, combined with the contributions of citizens through journalist cooperatives, can provide the funding necessary to underwrite long-term investigative journalism into serious issues that will keep citizens sufficiently informed to make meaningful decisions. Government support can also allow newspapers to specialize in accordance with a rational division of work, thereby ending the spectacle of journalists running to the same press conferences and then writing identical articles for their newspapers. Government funding assures that the reporter has the ability to concentrate on the pursuit of truth in a focused manner.
Many are deeply fearful of government funding and the resulting control of the media in Korea by politicians. The concern is completely understandable because Koreans have experience with authoritarian regimes that manipulated public opinion through tightly-controlled government journalism. We must of course always be extremely cautious about this point.
But we already trust the government to fund public education and research in science and technology. Although neither of those cases are completely successful, the situation is far better than is in the case in the United States where radical privatization of public education has led to high illiteracy rates and non-functional schools for many working-class neighborhoods. The government should invest heavily in the long-term education of its citizens through primary, secondary, and graduate schools so as to assure that they have sufficient understanding of the world. Journalism will provide them with the information that they need to understand short-term and long-term developments in society and in the world after they finish school through carefully produced materials based on scientifically valid investigative journalism.
Neither education nor journalism should be privatized or run primarily for a profit. Rather they should be run as public services primarily for the purpose of informing citizens about issues important to our society in an objective and diverse manner that is accessible to everyone.
It is entirely possible to establish a series of checks and balances that will allow the government to fund journalism dedicated to the common good in a comprehensive and long-term manner. Such an effort will accomplish its primary goal: drawing citizens into a reasoned discussion on contemporary issues. Government could offer to pay the salaries of journalists who conduct investigative journalism through long-term grants. The assignment of grants would be decided, as is the case in the fields of science and technology, by a committee of professional peers, and perhaps also by representatives of citizens groups, on a regular basis.
The funding would be substantial and provided long-term, subject to review. Funding would be provided for salaries, offices, and equipment for citizen journalists who will carry out extended investigations of current issues and provide in-depth reports based on extensive investigations, as well as shorter summaries for the general public.
Such a system is not corruption-proof, but if we can inspire a new culture of investigative journalism among citizens, fortified by investigative journalism by professional journalists, we have a reasonable chance of establishing an effective approach to meaningful journalism.
We must also realize just how dangerous the situation is today. We have no choice but to take comprehensive reforms aimed at changing the very essence of journalism. Or would you rather see Korea dragged into a world war between the China and the United States because citizens were exposed only to unrealistic fantasy stories in the news they relied on?
Lectures for the public, and lectures at elementary schools, high schools, and universities, are as important to the citizen journalist's work as the writing of articles. Introducing complex topics like the economy, culture, technology, and society to ordinary citizens through town hall meetings is extremely important to create a healthy society and helps reporters to understand both their topic and their audience. Providing funds to support such journalists and their newspapers should be a critical part of the function of government.
Although this process of changing the nature of journalism, the nature of writing, will take time, it will not take that long to start a significant transformation because so many citizens are deeply frustrated by the superficiality of current media and their complete inability to participate in it. Even alternative media sources are often completely opaque and inaccessible to most citizens. If we can put forth a few powerful media platforms that supply steady incomes for those who undertake investigative reporting and who provide citizens' education programs on contemporary issues, we can create new seriousness in writing, reading, and debate that will spread throughout our society.
If we look for successful examples of government-funded institutions that produce outstanding journalism, we can find them. The BBC or NHK in the 1970s and 1980s are excellent examples. In the Korean case, the government-run KTV could be a promising opportunity. This station could give grants to journalists, academics, or citizen reporters to produce broadcasts on critical topics for citizens. KTV could be built up into a major news service domestically. At the same time, bringing in committees of experts and citizens to oversee content development at Yonhap and other broadcasters to make sure that it is focused on the real long-term needs of the country could have a positive impact.
Perhaps the most intriguing opportunity is the case of Arirang TV. Korea's primary English language station, Arirang has developed a following, but it does not provide the sort of high-impact investigative reporting that we find at Al Jazeera TV or RT, or even the BBC. With proper funding and with greater independence, Arirang could become a major player in serious investigative journalism, rather than simply introducing the daily news in a light and condensed manner akin to the fluff produced by CNN.
At the same time, Korea will do best in journalism if it effectively returns to its cultural roots and uncovers traditions that can guide it forward. Perhaps the best model for Korean journalism reform can be found in the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty. This history of the Joseon Dynasty is famous for its remarkable objectiveness and included a series of elaborate safeguards to make sure that the historians (sagwan) involved in recording and editing the records were able to maintain objectivity and receive incomes without a need to constantly demonstrate their worth to the powerful. The Chunchugwan (Hall of History) which managed the editing of the Veritable Records was able to resist, in many cases, efforts of the king or high officials to interfere in the editorial decisions.
The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty will need to be completely reinterpreted if we want to make them the basis for the journalism ecosystem in Korea. Yet the very act of looking back at Korea's past as a place to find models for the future of a distinctly Korean journalism can be inspiring. For Korean journalists to be aware that there was a tremendous tradition of objective historical writing for the common good in Korea that predates the manipulation of journalism in the 1970s and 1980s will give them a new confidence.
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We are, in short, facing a tremendous crisis in Korea — and around the world — wherein the essential system for providing citizens with reliable and relevant news about their neighborhoods, their regions, the nation and the world has completely collapsed. This crisis a security crisis in that, if citizens cannot judge how Korea is being manipulated by foreign nations, international banks, or hidden forces, they are unable to judge how the nation should respond to current threats. The breakdown of journalism also causes the democratic process to collapse. If citizens cannot obtain reliable information about actual policy and are forced to rely on sensationalist reporting about the personalities of politicians and personal scandals, they are incapable of voting in a meaningful manner. Elections are reduced to rituals in which formerly engaged citizens are actively encouraged to be self-indulgent and to follow their whims and impulses, watching dancing shows on street corners in the run up to the elections rather than taking part in meaningful discussion with their neighbors about policy and taking the time to inform themselves about critical issues.
Let us take a look at the most serious issues facing Korea today:
1) The unprecedented concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny group of the wealthy in Korea, and around the world.
2) The overwhelming threat of runaway climate change, now and over the next twenty years as documented through careful scientific inquiry. The specific immediate implications:
Growing semi-arid conditions in South Korea and even more in North Korea, coupled with extreme water shortages, which will become much worse over the next decade.
Rising sea levels and the devastation of marine life by warming oceans.
Rising temperatures that will bring new diseases, reduce agricultural productivity, and make imported food to Korea vastly more expensive.
The striking rise in illnesses among citizens due to an increasing use of coal power in Korea, and the self-regulation of factories by corporations that leaves the government and the public in the dark as to what kinds of pollution factories produce.
3) The growing militarization of the United States, the drive for war with Russia or China within the American establishment, coupled with the death of American diplomacy and its previous idealistic contributions to international cooperation.
4) The devastating East China Sea oil spill, which is poisoning fish off the coast of Korea and is causing damage in Jeju and most likely elsewhere.
5) The collapse of the local economy in Korea, especially in small towns, and the closing down of family-run businesses, especially groceries and restaurants, around the nation.
6) The impending collapse of the lucrative market for Korean smart phones, automobiles, steel, and ships that have been assumed by state planners to the be the core engine for Korean economic growth for decades (and the lack of any viable replacements).
7) The end of long-term employment with full benefits. Youth now face a risky and uncertain future and they often start out their lives saddled with debt.
You would have to look carefully to find any references to these critical issues in the newspapers or TV broadcasts in Korea. Although occasionally some aspects of these issues, which ought to be on the front page of every newspaper every day, are treated in an anecdotal manner, there is little investigative journalism that explains how the problems began, what is involved now, and what precisely needs to be done to solve the problems. In fact, most journalists are under such pressure to produce superficial and disposable articles for immediate consumption that they are not permitted to engage in journalism.
First and foremost, we must recognize that journalism is not a business and that making money is not the purpose of journalism. Journalism should present accurate information to the public and encourage citizens to increase their intellectual and ethical engagement with society, rather than stupifying the citizenry by appealing to base instincts of appetite for food and sex.
That is to say, journalism and media are not products to be sold, but rather a form of education, with a focus on ethics, artistic and literary expression, and engagement with the critical issues of our age at the local, national, and international levels. How many people consume news reports is beside the point. Whether we can inform citizens about critical issues and encourage them to reach a higher level of mindfulness and social commitment is essential.
We must confront the most obvious problem first: the reliance of media on advertising. Advertising inherently skews journalism because it subjects reporting primarily to the financial interests of its advertisers and not to the search for truth and ethical commitment. The result is a predictable attempt to maintain a façade of a happy society without any serious problems throughout the reporting process, with more serious crises treated as if they were freaks of nature rather than the product of systemic, economic, or structural problems that require one to step back and contemplate carefully historical and cultural factors.
Advertising also has a direct impact on citizens because all news content to which citizens are exposed in newspapers and magazines, and especially on TV, is found interspersed with images of people engaged in indulgent and selfish behavior, consuming and satisfying their desires without any care for society or nation. Although advertising is not journalism, it has the same, or greater, impact on readers because graphics as employed in advertisement is of higher quality than that used in reporting and is designed to grab the attention of the reader.
There is little connection between the images found in advertising and the reality of Korean society today. No mention of the value of sacrifice, of restraint, of modesty, and of commitment to ideals that go beyond the cult of the self. Recently advertising has taken a distinct turn for the worse by portraying almost exclusively images of the rich living in luxurious homes. The underlying assumption of these commercials is that one must be rich, self-indulgent, and superficial to have a life worthy of attention. These advertisements never show the lives of ordinary citizens, let alone the experiences of the poor or the working classes. The underlying assumption is that the tremendous polarization of wealth in Korean society is only the more reason for all Koreans to envy and admire those who drift purposelessly from one expensive coffee shop to another.
What went wrong?
It only deepens our sense of missed opportunity when we reflect that Korea already possesses all that would be required to establish the best standard of journalism in the world. The literacy rate for the country is one of the highest, as is the percentage of citizens with advanced training, including many PhDs. The sophistication of Korean journalists is quite high, including the knowledge of multiple foreign languages by many among them. So also there are many university professors and lecturers at Korean universities who have advanced degrees from elite universities abroad and have the training to engage in meaningful analysis and explanation of important topics for a general audience.
There are cultural traditions in Korea, unfortunately, that have led intellectuals in Korea to see their specialized knowledge as a source of class status, rather than as a moral imperative to help their fellow citizens. That regrettable habit goes far back in history.
But structural issues are even more important. In the case of journalists, thousands of highly educated people working at large national newspapers, and also at local newspapers, spend their days responding to speeches by government officials or corporations and then go back to offices to pound out articles that are virtually identical in content. Rather than being allowed to develop expertise in specific fields and engage in thoughtful investigative journalism over weeks, or even months, that would produce meaningful analysis and concrete proposals for significant policy improvements, highly educated journalists are trapped in a mouse's exercise wheel of rapid transcription.
The situation for professors is not much better and is quickly deteriorating. Writing for the public, lecturing for ordinary citizens, engaging in any activities aimed at ordinary citizens is actively discouraged. The only writing that is recognized as valuable by the university is the academic article for an SSCI (Social Science Citation Index) journal. Most people have never read a SSCI journal article in their lives and if you want to read one you must pay a fee even though the research that supports such publications is funded by your taxes. Writing such academic journals is not option for a scholar, but are demanded without concern for whether the article has any significance or whether the professor writes for a general audience as well.
The situation is particularly bad in rural areas where universities, the only site of intellectual inquiry, are quickly being shut down quickly, and newspapers focused on careful investigative journalism about local issues are virtually nonexistent. The so-called conservative trends among certain voting groups, and especially among older voters, can be traced back to the extremely low quality of the media sources that they rely on, and not so much an inherent bias.
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the current approach to journalism is the embrace of technology as an imperative and a solution. It is vaguely assumed, without any particular proof, that moving to technologically more advanced formats is something that must be done, and that it will somehow improve the nature of journalism. If you look at magazines from the 1950s and 1960s in Korea you will find far more detailed descriptions of how the world works, the nature of natural phenomena and the actual functioning of government than you will find in current journalism. We have clearly gone downhill since the days of those exclusively printed magazines. Even supposedly critical journals like Sisa-in are increasingly glossy and lacking in critical analysis.
Technology-driven media seeks to grab the attention of the consumer and thus encourages superficial reading. Images are employed to stimulate the brain to release the neurochemical dopamine, thus creating a sensation of meaningfulness in an act which is of marginal importance. Such repeated action can lead to addictive behavior. The situation is made worse by the assumption that the reader is a customer who must be lured through tricks, rather than a citizen to be reasoned with.
So serious is the negative impact of smart phones and social networks that they may ultimately not be the basis for the building up of informed citizens through the Internet, but rather the primary cause of a terrifying wave of anti-intellectualism in Korean society. We should take steps to limit the use of smart phones and of frivolous social media and to make sure that both are used primarily for healthy activities related to understanding contemporary society and working to improve it. We need to make technology part of a larger project for forming positive communities so that citizens use social networks to share valuable information about important issues, rather than post photographs of fat kittens or café lattes with slices of cheese cakes.
What we must do next
Creating a viable media is a massive and long-term project which can only be pursued if citizens have a strong understanding of what the problems with the media are and can move beyond the current culture of denial and avoidance of hard issues. As citizens get their information through the media in the first place, the process will not be an easy one in any sense.
The first step towards creating a healthy and useful journalism must begin at the local level. We need to create local newspapers that provide relevant news for citizens and that are coordinated with seminars at the local level, open to all citizens, that address in an analytic manner important economic and social issues at the local, national, and international levels.
Bringing the public into the discussion on current events can make the news relevant again. We must assume that, after a generation of citizens has now become accustomed to a commercial media focused on an "attention economy," it will be necessary to teach citizens how to concentrate and how to engage in effective journalism in their own lives, both through what they write for each other, and how they read, and share, what they find in newspapers.
We need to train our citizens as reporters from elementary school who will write down what they see in an objective manner and make suggestions to the community as to how we can address local problems. This act of identifying and describing one's own neighborhood, and actively suggesting improvements on the part of all citizens, will create a greater journalism community that can support journalism in the future. Schools should encourage young people to learn for themselves about the economic, social, and cultural shifts taking place in their own neighborhoods. Investigative reporting and thoughtful analysis of the world around us should be a part of education and the content of textbooks should be directly related to community and national issues.
The key to good journalism is purposely avoiding sensationalism and excitement and focusing on the employment of a scientific approach in the analysis of our world, and engaging in that analysis in a cooperative manner with fellow students. That must be at the core of the educational system. All middle schools and high schools should have newspapers and writing for the newspaper should be an essential part of one's grades for school.
Above all, a new culture of awareness and activism at the local level must be encouraged that will support the renaissance of journalism. Such a change in habit, however, cannot happen overnight. It will take considerable effort and there will be a transitional period during which there are many poorly attended local seminars for citizens. If we demonstrate long-term commitment and we launch a meaningful movement for citizens' engagement in policy and analysis, it is entirely possible to make such a shift in thinking into a reality.
Currently, such a local community to support citizen journalism is almost non-existent. Most people do not know their neighbors' names and almost never meet up with neighbors to discuss current social, economic, and cultural concerns. They are trapped within a consumer mentality that makes them passive recipients of information produced by third parties who make little effort to engage in analysis and explanation, or rigorous questioning, of what is happening in their communities. But symbolic steps can be taken to encourage experts from local colleges, or journalists, or local businessmen and government officials, to lead the discussions on important issues that give citizens a sense that they are part of an active intellectual community.
Once citizens are involved in the production of journalism, it will become a habit to write, and to look for more information (with a critical eye) elsewhere. Newspapers are dying not only because they compete with free on-line content, but also because they are non-participatory. Citizens will pay for newspapers if they find the content to be valuable to their daily lives and if they see the reporting in them as a vital part of the community they inhabit. A bookshelf that you make yourself is more valuable than one that you buy and the same is true for journalism.
Journalism cooperatives
Korea might first take the step of moving away from a dependency on advertising and for-profit journalism and start to create cooperatives for research and journalistic efforts. Currently we have so-called progressive media which is also addicted to advertising revenue and cannot tackle hard topics head-on. But journalism collectives supported by membership could do so effectively without a need to grab attention.
If citizens pay to become members of cooperatives dedicated to providing accurate information through journalism and attend occasional seminars that address issues of concern to them, they will feel a real incentive to support those cooperatives. Some might argue that such organizations already exist, but based on my experience as a member of three progressive NGOs that supposedly played such a role, it is not a reality. You can pay 10,000 Won a month to be a member of an NGO and receive occasional emails, but you cannot propose topics for seminars to be held, you cannot easily contribute content, and the people running the NGOs do not consult with you about what they are doing or invite you to regular events to discuss issues of concern to you in your neighborhood. This member-as-customer attitude must stop.
We will be facing a period of deep financial difficulties over the years ahead and media sources that do not have deep roots in local cooperatives will find it hard to survive. I anticipate that much of the so-called progressive media will die off at precisely the moment that it is most needed. Why? The problem has to do with the ownership of media sources. It is not sufficient for a newspaper or television program to be privately owned by an an open-minded person. The pressure to respond to market forces will encourage even the most critical and well-meaning journals to turn to a sensationalist and predictable formula in their writing.
Nor is it a good idea to rely on the beneficence of the wealthy to fund alternative media through occasional donations. Such a dependency can lead to a journalism which addresses only issues of interest to progressive-minded elite but of little relevance to ordinary workers — who are increasingly not reading newspapers at all. It is essential to engage all citizens, not just a highly educated minority.
One possible approach is the establishment of a micro-share program for new media. The ownership of the newspaper would be broken up into shares and micro-shares (fractional shares) and citizen reporters, or professional reporters, would be rewarded for the articles they contribute with micro-shares each time they write. Over time, ten or twenty articles, or more, could add up to be a significant stake in the company itself and the value of those shares would increase over time because of the efforts of the journalists. There would not be any outside stock owners for the newspapers to report to. Reporters would not only be paid by the newspaper; they would own it. Such an approach could create effective and independent journalism in Korea, and I am sure many journalists from major newspapers would welcome such an approach.
The role of government
As the renowned journalism expert Robert McChesney has stressed in his writings, ultimately, government has a vital role to play in the development of meaningful journalism. Only with some form of government support can we assure that objective journalism is available for the general public, instead of journalism aimed at creating a mood among the population that is in accord with the needs of the corporations that pay for advertising.
The use of government funding, combined with the contributions of citizens through journalist cooperatives, can provide the funding necessary to underwrite long-term investigative journalism into serious issues that will keep citizens sufficiently informed to make meaningful decisions. Government support can also allow newspapers to specialize in accordance with a rational division of work, thereby ending the spectacle of journalists running to the same press conferences and then writing identical articles for their newspapers. Government funding assures that the reporter has the ability to concentrate on the pursuit of truth in a focused manner.
Many are deeply fearful of government funding and the resulting control of the media in Korea by politicians. The concern is completely understandable because Koreans have experience with authoritarian regimes that manipulated public opinion through tightly-controlled government journalism. We must of course always be extremely cautious about this point.
But we already trust the government to fund public education and research in science and technology. Although neither of those cases are completely successful, the situation is far better than is in the case in the United States where radical privatization of public education has led to high illiteracy rates and non-functional schools for many working-class neighborhoods. The government should invest heavily in the long-term education of its citizens through primary, secondary, and graduate schools so as to assure that they have sufficient understanding of the world. Journalism will provide them with the information that they need to understand short-term and long-term developments in society and in the world after they finish school through carefully produced materials based on scientifically valid investigative journalism.
Neither education nor journalism should be privatized or run primarily for a profit. Rather they should be run as public services primarily for the purpose of informing citizens about issues important to our society in an objective and diverse manner that is accessible to everyone.
It is entirely possible to establish a series of checks and balances that will allow the government to fund journalism dedicated to the common good in a comprehensive and long-term manner. Such an effort will accomplish its primary goal: drawing citizens into a reasoned discussion on contemporary issues. Government could offer to pay the salaries of journalists who conduct investigative journalism through long-term grants. The assignment of grants would be decided, as is the case in the fields of science and technology, by a committee of professional peers, and perhaps also by representatives of citizens groups, on a regular basis.
The funding would be substantial and provided long-term, subject to review. Funding would be provided for salaries, offices, and equipment for citizen journalists who will carry out extended investigations of current issues and provide in-depth reports based on extensive investigations, as well as shorter summaries for the general public.
Such a system is not corruption-proof, but if we can inspire a new culture of investigative journalism among citizens, fortified by investigative journalism by professional journalists, we have a reasonable chance of establishing an effective approach to meaningful journalism.
We must also realize just how dangerous the situation is today. We have no choice but to take comprehensive reforms aimed at changing the very essence of journalism. Or would you rather see Korea dragged into a world war between the China and the United States because citizens were exposed only to unrealistic fantasy stories in the news they relied on?
Lectures for the public, and lectures at elementary schools, high schools, and universities, are as important to the citizen journalist's work as the writing of articles. Introducing complex topics like the economy, culture, technology, and society to ordinary citizens through town hall meetings is extremely important to create a healthy society and helps reporters to understand both their topic and their audience. Providing funds to support such journalists and their newspapers should be a critical part of the function of government.
Although this process of changing the nature of journalism, the nature of writing, will take time, it will not take that long to start a significant transformation because so many citizens are deeply frustrated by the superficiality of current media and their complete inability to participate in it. Even alternative media sources are often completely opaque and inaccessible to most citizens. If we can put forth a few powerful media platforms that supply steady incomes for those who undertake investigative reporting and who provide citizens' education programs on contemporary issues, we can create new seriousness in writing, reading, and debate that will spread throughout our society.
If we look for successful examples of government-funded institutions that produce outstanding journalism, we can find them. The BBC or NHK in the 1970s and 1980s are excellent examples. In the Korean case, the government-run KTV could be a promising opportunity. This station could give grants to journalists, academics, or citizen reporters to produce broadcasts on critical topics for citizens. KTV could be built up into a major news service domestically. At the same time, bringing in committees of experts and citizens to oversee content development at Yonhap and other broadcasters to make sure that it is focused on the real long-term needs of the country could have a positive impact.
Perhaps the most intriguing opportunity is the case of Arirang TV. Korea's primary English language station, Arirang has developed a following, but it does not provide the sort of high-impact investigative reporting that we find at Al Jazeera TV or RT, or even the BBC. With proper funding and with greater independence, Arirang could become a major player in serious investigative journalism, rather than simply introducing the daily news in a light and condensed manner akin to the fluff produced by CNN.
At the same time, Korea will do best in journalism if it effectively returns to its cultural roots and uncovers traditions that can guide it forward. Perhaps the best model for Korean journalism reform can be found in the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty. This history of the Joseon Dynasty is famous for its remarkable objectiveness and included a series of elaborate safeguards to make sure that the historians (sagwan) involved in recording and editing the records were able to maintain objectivity and receive incomes without a need to constantly demonstrate their worth to the powerful. The Chunchugwan (Hall of History) which managed the editing of the Veritable Records was able to resist, in many cases, efforts of the king or high officials to interfere in the editorial decisions.
The Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty will need to be completely reinterpreted if we want to make them the basis for the journalism ecosystem in Korea. Yet the very act of looking back at Korea's past as a place to find models for the future of a distinctly Korean journalism can be inspiring. For Korean journalists to be aware that there was a tremendous tradition of objective historical writing for the common good in Korea that predates the manipulation of journalism in the 1970s and 1980s will give them a new confidence.
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