Javnost - The Public, Vol. 15 - 2008, No. 1
Cultural coup d’etat: The changing roles of UNESCO and local government on cultural sovereignty
The article clarifies the cause of the changes of the Korean cultural policy with a special focus on the screen quota system. As a starting point of the discussion, it documents the way in which the screen quota system has been maintained or developed under neoliberal globalisation. Korea has been one of few countries that have resisted Hollywood’s hegemony over the decades with some success. The article then examines how the UNESCO has reaffirmed the right of sovereign states to maintain and implement polices that protect and promote cultural expression in order to investigate whether the UNESCO convention has provided legal protections to local culture and cultural sovereignty. Finally, the paper discusses why the Korean government has initiated the rapid policy change in the screen quota in relation to the U.S. pressure.The key question will be the role of the nation-state in the process of the changing cultural politics in the UNESCO convention era.
The political economy of convergence. The Janus faces of Korean convergence
Drawing upon qualitative data from stakeholders in convergence in Korea, this study traces the process of convergence in terms of politics, regulation, and policy, and examines how the stakeholders’ interests are aligned and coordinated in the process of convergence in Korea. Using actor network theory, the study relates the socio-technological construction of Korea’s strategy for convergence reform. Key research questions are: (1) What strategy has Korea adopted, (2) What social and political factors have influenced strategy formulation, and (3) How different interests have stabilised ideologies in which actors formulate their strategies based on their interests. Despite the dynamics of interactions, the actor-network around convergence has not been effectively stabilised yet, as the politics of convergence is complex and marked by paradoxical features.
Research into Chinese media organisations. The case of Xinhua Shanghai bureau
This article examines the impact of media marketisation in China upon organisational structure and journalistic practices of Chinese news organisations. It aims to assess to what extent market factors have weakened the centralised control over local journalistic practices in the last two and a half decades. This paper focuses on Xinhua Shanghai Bureau, a local division within a central news organisation, Xinhua News Agency, which is headquartered in Beijing and operates nationwide. This article looks not only at the news institution itself, but also at how news organisations interrelate with other institutions. In other words, the paper explores structural and journalistic changes in connection with a set of relations, which a Chinese news organisation has to deal with, existing relations within and outside the organisation.
“Is this news to you, Prime Minister?” Media agendas, news management and a campaign interaction in the 2005 UK general election
This paper presents a specific case study – a “campaign interaction” between the prime minister and a member of the public during a live BBC TV general election debate – in order to examine a number of issues around concerns over the “crisis in public communication” and political control of news information flows. In a wider political sense this episode, in which Tony Blair seemed to be unprepared for a question about family doctor appointment times, was a relatively minor element of a general election campaign dominated by issues such as asylum policy and the Iraq war. Nevertheless, analysis of the ensuing news coverage suggests that election news agendas can be diverted away (at least temporarily) from the planned communications of political agents towards issues and themes publicised by non-official, non-expert sources, while also illustrating the ultimate reliance of the media on those official accredited sources. The role of the BBC in the case study also raises the issue of its position as a public service broadcaster, and the interaction between press and broadcasting in British political news coverage.
Public deliberation goes on-line? An analysis of citizens’ political discussions on the Internet prior to the Finnish parliamentary elections in 2007
This article examines on-line political discussions’ potential of becoming truly deliberative discussions, capable of bringing about democratic benefits, through combining two theoretically important aspects found in the literature – concerns regarding citizens’ participation in on-line politics and the quality (or lack thereof) of on-line discussions – in one analytical framework. Specifically, the article firstly examines how many, and more importantly, which types of citizens participate in on-line discussions. This part of the analysis adds to the scholarly debate concerning whether on-line politics is reaching beyond politically active and interested segments of the public. Secondly, the article examines the discussions on four Finnish political discussion boards during the last three weeks before the Finnish parliamentary election in March 2007. The quality of the discussions is assessed and discussed in light of several criteria based on the literature concerning deliberative democracy. In combining these two aspects, the article fills a gap in the research field where these aspects have mostly been examined separately. The findings of the article generally demonstrate that on-line discussions are not, at least for the time being, truly deliberative. The debates analysed generally did not meet deliberative standards in terms of quality and only politically very active and interested citizens seemed to take part in them. The question thus still remains if, and how, on-line citizens’ discussions can ever become truly deliberative.
Do mass media portray Europe as a community? German and French debates on EU enlargement and a common constitution
The goal of this article is to analyse whether, and when, the media depict Europe as a common community and whether, and when, they remain nationally confined. Media portray Europe as a community if they (1) make European and member state actors and topics visible, (2) show the mutual connectedness between these actors and (3) give voice to support and criticism while avoiding that nation states wall themselves off. To measure whether mass media depict Europe as a common community and thus potentially foster citizens’ integration a content analysis of interactions is systematically combined with empirical network analysis. A comparison of the debates on EU enlargement and a common constitution in the German and French quality press reveals that whether Europe is portrayed as a community varies between and within countries. Such variations seem to reflect the relation between national elites’ attitudes and public opinion towards a specific issue.