Mixed-Race Politics and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in South Korean Media

verfasst von: Prof. Ji-Hyun Ahn

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buchreihe : East Asian Popular Culture

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book studies how the increase of visual representation of mixed-race Koreans formulates a particular racial project in contemporary South Korean media. It explores the moments of ruptures and disjuncture that biracial bodies bring to the formation of neoliberal multiculturalism, a South Korean national racial project that re-aligns racial lines under the nation’s neoliberal transformation. Specifically, Ji-Hyun Ahn examines four televised racial moments that demonstrate particular aspects of neoliberal multiculturalism by demanding distinct ways of re-imagining what it means to be Korean in the contemporary era of globalization. Taking a critical media/cultural studies approach, Ahn engages with materials from archives, the popular press, policy documents, television commercials, and television programs as an inter-textual network that actively negotiates and formulates a new racialized national identity. In doing so, the book provides a rich analysis of the ongoing struggle over racial reconfiguration in South Korean popular media, advancing an emerging scholarly discussion on race as a leading factor of social change in South Korea.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction

Abstract

The introduction is a concise overview of the goals of the project, the analytical framework, and the context of the study. The research questions and objectives are contextualized and the significance of the project is explained. The chapter also explains the analytical frameworks of neoliberal multiculturalism introducing the concept of “mixed-race as method” and previews the structure of the book.

Ji-Hyun Ahn

Chapter 2. The New Face of Korea

Abstract

This chapter maps out the discursive practice of imagining contemporary Korea as it shifts from a monoracial society and insular economy to a multiethnic global neoliberal state. It describes how race and nation are articulated together in the media to provide a sociohistorical context for the formation of neoliberal multiculturalism. In particular, the chapter describes the social production of mixed-race subjectivities such as Amerasian and the children of multicultural families as changes in these subjectivities indicate a broader shift in how the Korean state governs racial others and determines who is included and excluded in the nation. The chapter strategically reads governmental policy on the mixed-race population alongside media/cultural policy in a historical context to underscore how mass media and popular culture shaped particular images of Korea.

Ji-Hyun Ahn

“I Am Proud to Be a Korean”: Amerasian Celebrity Culture

Frontmatter

Chapter 3. From National Threat to National Hero

Abstract

Chapter 2 investigates Hines Ward as a key mixed-race media figure. It reads his visit to Korea as a “media event” and examine how this event led to the discursive explosion of multiculturalism in Korean society in 2006. As Ward is a black Amerasian, a group previously neglected and oppressed in Korea, it is argued that the discursive articulation between his Amerasian background and the popular discussion of multiculturalism became the cultural site of a “multicultural battle” for Koreanness in relation to Korea’s racist past. Analyzing the particular modes used by media to articulate his blackness, Koreanness, and Americanness as well as his global success as a male sports celebrity, it is argued that the Korean media and state appropriated Ward to project the national desire to be global and multicultural.

Ji-Hyun Ahn

Chapter 4. Consuming Cosmopolitan White(ness)

Abstract

This chapter discusses white Amerasian actor and celebrity Daniel Henney, an interesting counterpoint to Ward’s case. Media discourse around Henney is disconnected from Korea’s racist past and is instead articulated with discourses of transnational mobility, cosmopolitan whiteness, and beauty. The Henney moment is considered as a neoliberal project that reorients racial lines by transforming beauty norms and masculinity in contemporary Korean popular culture. Through a thorough analysis of his visual representation in fashion magazines, TV commercials, and TV dramas, the chapter demonstrates that his whiteness is not a mere marker of his race but also an index of other intersecting categories, including (trans)nationality, beauty, gender, and class.

Ji-Hyun Ahn

Performing the Multicultural Reality: Mixed-Race Children in Reality TV

Frontmatter

Chapter 5. Televising the Making of the Neoliberal Multicultural Family

Abstract

This chapter looks at how the state-sponsored public broadcasting network, the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), frames statist multiculturalism to deal with the increasing number of multicultural families and their mixed-race children. It also examines one of Korea’s representative human documentary programs, Love in Asia (KBS-1TV), showing that it televises normative images of the multicultural family to (re)produce this racial subject as an “economic citizen” who can contribute to the national economy. By analyzing how the show mobilizes two types of cultural metaphors—the Korean Obama and the cultural bridge—the chapter asserts that the show uses mixed-race bodies to construct the neoliberal multicultural state.

Ji-Hyun Ahn

Chapter 6. This Is (not) Our Multicultural Future

Abstract

This chapter examines visual representations of mixed-race children in the tradition of the commercial entertainment genre of reality TV. Locating ordinary biracial kids at the center of the discussion, the chapter contextualizes the recent rise of the reality-observation genre in Korean commercial television in relation to the globalization of the reality TV format and the Korean media industry’s neoliberal turn. It analyzes two reality-observation programs that cast ordinary mixed-race children—Rainbow Kindergarten (tvN 2011) and Cackling Class in Vietnam (tvN 2013)—as the televisual site where Korean audiences learn to read racial differences. By critically analyzing what particular types of racial differences become (in)visible in television culture, the chapter argues that both shows televise the neoliberal remaking of the familial unit on a transnational scale.

Ji-Hyun Ahn

Backmatter

Titel: Mixed-Race Politics and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in South Korean Media
verfasst von: Prof. Ji-Hyun Ahn
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-65774-5
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65773-8
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65774-5