/
When you turn on the TV or search the Internet, what can you see? You can see lots of articles about Korean wave. Even in the Western press, we can see some articles about it. The Korean Wave fired through the world such as China, Japan, France and so on. To introduce our unique culture and improve Korean wave, lots of institutions starts conducting cultural diplomacy. Even, it not only simply makes Korea popular but also vitalizes export of agricultural products. If we only see this circumstance, we can easily delude that Korean wave spreads in desirable way. However, we need more critical view to see through the problem of it. Through this consideration, we can also realize the big problem of cultural diplomacy in a broad perspective. I believe that Korean wave has problem and Korean cultural diplomacy should solve this problem.
At first, it is important to fully understand what diplomacy is. How much do you know about diplomacy? Maybe most of the people only recall something abstract or stuffy to their mind. For example, when someone asks them "Do you know what diplomats do?", they will answer "Well, it only has to do with government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I don't know well but maybe diplomats have diplomatic conferences with other nations' diplomats, right?" How abstract and stuffy. Like this, for the general public, diplomacy seems quite distant and they never think it lightly. That's because they usually bring 'traditional diplomacy' to their mind. However, their viewpoint is an old one. As time goes by, diplomacy also have changed. In the past, there was only traditional diplomacy. But, now, there is a new type of diplomacy, which uses soft power, which is power that makes opponents be attracted spontaneously by appeal not compulsion. We need to distinguish these two types of diplomacy. First, traditional diplomacy is diplomacy which uses hard power. It has government as the subject of diplomacy. We can define its format of communication as Closed Negotiation. Compared to traditional diplomacy, cultural diplomacy has Open Communication. It is interactive and uses various digital media like Internet, SNS and so on. For reference, we have to distinguish cultural diplomacy from public diplomacy. Understanding public diplomacy is important to know what cultural diplomacy is. It is still controversial to exactly define them until now, but typically it is considered that public diplomacy includes cultural diplomacy. Public diplomacy refers diplomacy which strengthen leverage of Korea by improving the image and brand power of Korea, and improve diplomatic relations by developing a bond of sympathy on our history, traditions, culture, policy. The key point of public diplomacy is to win the hearts and minds of people. There are three big contributors that made public diplomacy appear; after 911 terror, limitation of hard power was revealed; general public appeared as main agents of diplomacy and people power was on the rise; new media such as social media and social network services made rapid progress. In this essay, I especially focused on cultural diplomacy, not public diplomacy.
After understanding these two types of diplomacy, we need to analyze the diffusion aspect of Korean wave. Korean wave is also a kind of cultural diplomacy that Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs conducts.
When it comes to diffusion trend of Korean wave, it is easy to confuse that we, Korean conduct cultural diplomacy in a desirable way. Then does cultural diplomacy in Korea is really well conducted? No. I'd like to point out main problems of Korean cultural diplomacy with the example of Korean wave.
First, we excessively compel foreigners to experience Korean culture. Thanks to widespread Korean culture, more and more foreigners visits Korea. According to Shanghai Korean News, 2014 recorded 38% increase in the number of Chinese visitors, compared to 2013. Also, Hongkong visitors recorded 43% increase, Russian recorded 26% increase, and Taiwanese recorded 24% increase. In addition, many foreign stars visits Korea, but everytime we excessively ask them to eat Kimchi or dance PSY's Horse-riding dance and they showed their displeasure with it. This can rather give them bad image of Korean culture. We have to give them opportunity to naturally experience our culture. When it comes to this problem, we have one more thing that we should consider. Do we have enough programs to satisfy foreigners? We only forces them to experience our culture and we don't have enough programs that foreigners want. As many people know, Korean drama '대장금' became internationally famous, especially in China and it was even diffused through Africa. After watching this drama and the drama named ‘허준’, an Iraqi became interested in Korean medicine and decided to visit Korea. The problem was that he wanted to stay in Gyeongbokgung Palace. Like him, many foreigners want to feel Korean culture. However, there's no enough facilities to let them stay in Korean traditional building. Of course, there are guest houses like Jeonju Han-ok Village, but the problem is that there's no such facilities in capital area and its service can't surpass services of Hotel. Thus, we need to focus on Korean culture that foreigners are interested in and to provide them with decent program that can maintain their interest.
Second, Korean cultural diplomacy tend to depend on Korean wave, and it rely entirely on the entertainment world, especially on K-Pop. However, it makes big problem. As we can see from the news, nowadays many TV stars are on the news because of their corruption. It is a deathblow to the image of Korea. If we continuously only rely on the entertainment world, we can't overcome the destructive results and it becomes hard to maintain foreigners interest on Korea. Therefore, it is very important to develop various field of Korean culture such as traditional food, cultural assets, fashion and so on.
In addition, a big problem of Korean wave is that it only focuses on 'visual fun'. Of course, it is important to consider fun or interest. However, Korean wave exceed the bounds. 'Study on sexuality depicted in music programs for adolescents on three network television channels' points out this problem. According to this study, actually people does not tries to solve the problem. This is the serious problem in Korea. Then, why isn't it problem in other countries? Excessively suggestive and seductive performance can make them frown. To make desirable Korean culture, we have to think about whether it is right or not and try to solve the problem.
Of course, it is true that Korean cultural diplomacy has big positive effects on brand power of Korea. Some people can say that Korean wave is already successive and is already famous all over the world. However, that's because all PRESS reports only its high stature. If he or she read a news article titled "Super Junior is topping the charts of Taiwan for 60 weeks", they may argue that popularity of Super Junior is great. However, it is not true. In fact, it was charts 'for k-pop and j-pop' that Super Junior topped.
These are the title of news articles and they all involve exaggerated reports. Like the example that I mentioned, exaggerated reports confuse us to think that every foreigners love Korean culture. I acknowledge that it is natural that people can be confused because they can get information about Korean wave only through Korean press. However, I think that people themselves should try to read them critically and not to be deceived by an exaggeration.
Any developed countries in the world regard their culture as a massive wave. However, Korean think that Korean culture is the center of the world. According to press in Korea, Korean wave is really famous all over the world, but it is not true. We have to correctly analyze the materials related to Korean wave and critically think about how to improve Korean cultural diplomacy and how to use it to lead Korean wave to right way. Also, furthermore, I hope we can make this exaggeration real.
As cultural diplomacy, a new type of diplomacy comes into the spotlight, it is important to gravely consider how should we conduct it. If we only focused on the good point of cultural diplomacy in Korea, it can't develop. It is important to acknowledge the problem of it and to improve it. One suggestion that I want to recommend is making alternative culture that foreigners can enjoy. I don't think we can get benefit from Korean wave forever. Utilizing various assets and inventing more interesting cultural program for foreigners is important. Also, simply relying on Korean wave is not enough. We need to improve some diplomatic technology to satisfy foreigners interest toward it. That's the key point for desirable cultural diplomacy.
Bibliography
http://www.mofa.go.kr/main/index.jsp
http://www.publicdiplomacy.go.kr/introduce/public.jsp
http://blog.naver.com/yoongbi/164498530
http://blog.naver.com/hgb925/110181748778
http://blog.naver.com/kois913/10130259878
http://blog.naver.com/mentshin/50161123296
http://www.kf.or.kr/?menuno=134
http://blog.naver.com/golden_lee/40190671807
http://blog.naver.com/battlcar/220151455810
http://blog.naver.com/ingsksm/20207422421
http://blog.naver.com/shkonews/220178293751
Study on sexuality depicted in music programs for adolescents on three network television channels'
http://goham20.com/983
http://ent.hankyung.com/news/app/newsview.php?aid=2014091610374
댓글 없음:
댓글 쓰기