Please join us in the next PhD colloquium with, Soomin Seo, journalism professor, Columbia Communications Studies PhD and former reporter. Soomin will discuss her new work "Korea's Watergate Moment" which examines the interplay between news media and civil society.
As always, lunch will be served. And we are grateful for ongoing support from the Sevellon-Brown Fund.
The popular movement that brought down Park Geun-Hye was fueled in large part by two news outlets: Hankyoreh and JTBC. From July to November 2016, they confirmed rumors that Park’s friend Choi Soon-sil meddled in government affairs. This article analyzes the relationship between the news media and the greater civil society and derives three main findings. First, the 1987 democracy movement clearly provided institutional and cultural foundations. Second, professionalization and capacity-building mattered. Third is the element of sheer luck in journalism: a guard who took a big risk by letting journalists in to retrieve a key piece of evidence did so because he happened to be an ardent supporter of the democratic media movement.
This work argues that the case shows the significance of culture in media reform and civic engagement. While the two outlets were outnumbered by better-funded conservative outlets on Park’s side, the two ultimately prevailed with an irreverent culture of truth-seeking rooted in the 1980s.
Soomin Seo is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Temple University’s School of Media and Communication. Her research focuses on media sociology, media policy, media history and digital journalism. Soomin received her Ph.D. in Communication Studies at Columbia University and is also a former journalist.
