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Korea's Soft Power and Public Diplomacy
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... For example, South Korea used the 2018 Winter Olympics to promote its pop culture, including K-pop and Korean dramas, which contributed to a more positive perception of the country in the world. (Ayhan, 2017;Vandenberghe, 2017). ...
... For example, the 2018 Winter Olympics held in Pyeongchang, South Korea, focused on promoting peace, respect, and understanding, through initiatives such as the 'peace bank', which aimed to promote dialogue and understanding between athletes from different countries. (Ayhan, 2017;Vandenberghe, 2017). ...
Study Objective: To analyze the new conjuncture in the process for bidding to be the host city of the Summer or Winter Olympic Games. Methodology/Approach: Taking the 1990s as an initial reference point, this qualitative and exploratory research has been conducted, entailing the analysis and synthesis of data and information from secondary sources. The research extensively involves scrutinizing academic articles, books, news reports, and sources published on specialized websites.Originality/Relevance: The hosting of the Games and the demands imposed by the IOC have been increasingly criticized. A rise in the number of referendums with local inhabitants of bidding cities has resulted in applications being withdrawn throughout the selection process. Main Results: The results indicate that the new geopolitical scenario has significant implications for the bidding process for the Olympics. An unusual scenario ensues in the geopolitical environment of the Olympics, promoting not only changes in the profile of candidates, but also institutional changes within the IOC itself.Theoretical/methodological contributions: It can provide a better understanding of the complex relationship between politics, power, and sports events. The research can help to identify key variables that impact the selection process, which can then be further investigated through quantitative studies.Social/Management Contribution: The research can shed light on the impact of the selection process on society, including its economic, political, and social consequences. It can also inform the decision-making process of the IOC and other stakeholders involved.
... Since the Roh Moo-hyun presidency much has happened: namely the continued spread and impact of Hallyu. Presidents Lee Myung-bak, Park Geun-hye (ousted in 2017 by National Assembly for influence peddling by her closest aide), and especially Moon Jae-in have all benefited from this spread of Korean pop culture, enabling a way to further public diplomacy throughout the globe by way of less aggressive and softer approaches (Ayhan 2017). ...
As a visual and media educator who does not speak Korean, I explore in this chapter and the next the complexity of Korean popular culture and wonder what are the limitations of such an approach? Is it possible to offer some insights despite my linguistic limitation? This raises the difficulty of cross-cultural research in general. How are we to understand differences in cultural expression if we are unable to understand the language or ‘live’ the culture? Are we just faux anthropologists in this case, caught by the limitations of representation as discussed in the previous chapter? Is such difficulty placed on anyone in such a globalized world of media? Is there a certain uniqueness of the Korean situation that I will never be able to identify like the recent phenomenon of Mukbang for instance, or my inability to grasp Korean han? Does this problematic, the Idea of the Other, generate certain paradoxes where this very limitation enables a new perspective by attempting to grasp the visual and piece together the verbal? These are difficult questions. To recall Deleuze and Guattari’s warning, a poorly posed problem has little hope of creating something new and meaningful.
... More recently, the 2018 Pyeong Chang Olympics focused attention on South Korea. According to Kadir (2017), the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, and Sports and Tourism regarded the 2018 Olympics as a natural follow-on to the success of the 1988 Summer Olympics in South Korea as a tool to generate and exercise soft power. It seems that mega-sporting events, like the Olympics, focus the world's attention like little else, and a country's performance as host often has dramatic ramifications for the nation's image abroad (Laverty 2010). ...
Although hosting international high-profile sporting events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup are attractive soft power tools for governments to achieve public diplomacy goals, not all sports diplomacy efforts are mega-sporting events. This study explores the use of sports diplomacy by nations and attempts to identify the most applicable sports diplomacy resources available to governments to employ as soft power tools. The data for this research are composed of 30 online surveys completed by international experts in the fields of sports and public diplomacy. The responses were qualitatively analyzed using the fuzzy Delphi method (FDM). After running two rounds of fuzzy Delphi, sports diplomacy resources were classified into three categories: “Sports Events,” “Sports Human Capitals,” and “Sports Products.” Further, “sports players”; “women’s sports”; “hosting/participating in regional, international, continental, or global events”; “coaches”; and “authentic sports leagues” were identified as the most important sports diplomacy resources.
... In the last decade, a few books have been written on understanding East Asian practices of and perspectives on public diplomacy and soft power (see e.g. Ayhan, 2016Ayhan, , 2017Kurlantzick, 2007;Melissen & Lee, 2011;Melissen & Sohn, 2015;Wang, 2011;Watanabe & McConnell, 2008). ...
Editorial for Special Issue: Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in East Asia
Posljednjih desetljeća meka moć država postaje sve važniji segment njihova globalnog utjecaja. Naime, dok su nekada veličina teritorija ili broj stanovnika, odnosno ekonomska i vojna moć, definirali globalnu važnost pojedine države, u vremenu globalizacije i manje države postaju međunarodno utjecajni igrači ako posjeduju određenu snagu karizme i šarma, odnosno ako kreiraju globalno relevantne i atraktivne poruke, sadržaje, proizvode ili poteze. Taj se utjecaj sve češće temelji na kulturi, osobito popularnoj, koja ne poznaje granice i zahvaća najširi krug ljudi. Stoga sve veći broj država ulaže ozbiljna sredstva u jačanje globalne prepoznatljivosti kroz popularnu kulturu, osobito film. Iako je film od svojih početaka korišten kao promotivno, pa i ideološko sredstvo, posljednjih godina postaje – s jedne strane važan komercijalni proizvod, koji proizvođačima donosi velike prihode, a s druge strane izrazito važan segment meke moći države, jer na kreativan i popularan način progovara o vrijednostima neke zemlje ili kulture, važnim temama, velikanima, povijesnim događajima, načinu života i sl. U tome kontekstu popularna hollywoodska industrija nema više globalni primat, iako još uvijek prilično kreira trendove. Uz snažnu filmsku produkciju u Indiji, Južna Koreja postaje sve važniji globalni igrač. Kina sve više ulaže u vlastitu filmsku produkciju i jačanje meke moći kroz kulturu, a Turska je postala drugi globalni igrač u proizvodnji televizijskih serija. Stoga ćemo u ovome radu definirati ulogu filma kao važna segmenta meke moći, analizirati nastojanja SAD-a, Južne Koreje i Kine te ukazati na trendove i mogućnosti uporabe.
The purpose of this article was to analyse the concept of public diplomacy from the perspective of communication actors. Public diplomacy implies the communication between state and non-state actors and the foreign public, and the process of informing, influencing, establishing long-term relations and realizing foreign policy goals. While most studies to date view such communication activities as social interactions, some scholars consider them to be foreign policy activities, in which case the concept of public diplomacy is explained in terms of an interdisciplinary approach. Through the critical literature review, this article argues that public diplomacy shows the interaction between different communication stakeholders and the foreign public, where the former give direct messages and often achieve the desired effects through communication channels. By analysing public diplomacy activities carried out by communication actors, the article concludes that the concept of public diplomacy is clearly defined and more structured in communication sciences.
This study aims to conduct an exploratory case study on Hallyu or the
Korean Wave as an example of Korea’s cultural public diplomacy in
comparative contexts of China and Japan. Hallyu, which signifies popularity
of Korean media products (K-Pop music, Korean TV dramas, and Korean
movies) among foreign publics, can be considered as part of Korea’s public
diplomacy for two reasons: 1) Hallyu contributes to winning the favor of the
public overseas for Korea; 2) the Korean government is involved in
promoting Hallyu through collaboration with non-state actors. The Hallyu
phenomenon was not limited to one country, and as many other public
diplomacy initiatives show, developments of Hallyu revealed distinct
characteristics according to different countries. The causes of different
Hallyu developments in China and Japan were found to be stemming from a
combination of factors - ranging from political structure, domestic media
environment, historical relations with Korea, and public opinion. However,
anti-Hallyu movements in the two countries shared one main triggering
factor: that the popularity of Korean cultural media products became too
large an influential force so as to be perceived as a threat. Therefore, the
findings indicate that sustainability of Hallyu depends on 1) employment of
specific context-based strategies according to different countries, and 2)
consideration of mutual interests to go beyond pursuit of Korea’s national
interests.
The 'Tweeting the Olympics' project (the subject of this special section of Participations) must be understood in the context of efforts by host states, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other actors involved in the Games to cultivate and communicate a set of meanings to audiences about both the Olympics events and the nations taking part. Olympic Games are not only sporting competitions; they are also exercises in the management of relations between states and publics, at home and overseas, in order to augment the attractiveness and influence or the soft power of the states involved. Soft power is most successful when it goes unnoticed according to its chief proponent Joseph Nye. If so, how can we possibly know whether soft power works? This article reviews the state of the field in thinking about public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and soft power in the period of this project (2012-14), focusing particularly on how the audiences of soft power projects, like the London and Sochi Games, were conceived and addressed. One of the key questions this project addresses is whether international broadcasters such as the BBCWS and RT used social media during the Games to promote a cosmopolitan dialogue with global audiences and/or merely to integrate social media so as to project and shape national soft power. We argue first that the contested nature of the Olympic Games calls Volume 12, Issue 1 May 2015 Page 414 into question received theories of soft power, public and cultural diplomacy. Second, strategic national narratives during the Olympics faced additional challenges, particularly due to the tensions between the national and the international character of the Games. Third, the new media ecology and shift to a network paradigm further threatens the asymmetric power relations of the broadcasting paradigm forcing broadcasters to reassess their engagement with what was formerly known as 'the audience' and the targets of soft power.
This article statistically estimates the impact of different countries` softpower on the results of Olympic Games bidding in the post-Cold War era. Allbid results for the Olympic Summer and Winter Games between 1990 and 2011are analyzed by panel regression methods. The empirical results reveal that sportingsuccess, higher transparency, lower CO2 and particle emissions, and fastereconomic growth are likely to increase the probability of a bidding countrywinning an Olympic bid. These results have several implications regarding theimpact of soft power on choice of Olympic host site. First, if a country has ahigh number of Olympic gold medalists, this could attract International OlympicCommittee (IOC) members and influence their decisions. Second, a country`sethical reputation is likely to persuade the IOC to choose it as the rightful hostcountry. Third, the environmental record of a country may also be regarded as adesirable value by IOC members, who prefer a ``Green Games`` ecological legacy.
This study analyzes the rural Saemaul Undong of the 1970s in the Republic of Korea from the perspective of good governance. Diverse characteristics of good governance appeared in the Saemaul Undong-in particular, spontaneous participation by village people. This participation was not only a primary factor in the achievements of the Saemaul Undong, but also made it consensusoriented, responsive, and transparent in terms of decision-making and project implementation at the village level. Participation in the villages was promoted and supported by government intervention and strategies, which brought not only efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability, but also increased equity and inclusiveness in the Saemaul Undong. The Saemaul Undong embodied a number of characteristics of good governance.
The article analyses the potential of Russian tertiary education as a tool of long term influence in world politics. It makes a coherent review of a changing nature of leadership in world politics, shows advantages and disadvantages of Russian education as a soft power tool, evaluates the current government initiatives to improve the quality and attractiveness of Russian universities and colleges.
