Daewon Kim’s scientific contributions

This study identifies the attitudes of three types of newspaper journalists towards robot journalism by employing Q-methodology. The samples analyzed in this study are 47 journalists from 17 South Korean newspapers. The first type believes that journalism is beyond robots' capabilities, a position terms "journalism's elitism." The second type demonstrates the "Frankenstein complex," meaning greater concern about the introduction of robots based on dismal scenarios. The last type has a relatively rosy view, which focuses on a positive blueprint despite recognition of some threats.

This study sought to identify the determinants of chief officers of newspapers in introducing robot journalism into newsrooms. Analytic hierarchy process was employed as a methodology, and data to be analysed were obtained from 42 surveys on chief officers from 24 different newspaper companies. According to the results, a prospected business performance brought about by the introduction of robot journalism and news consumers' willingness to read robot-written news stories are top concerns among the criteria for the consideration of whether newspaper companies plan to introduce robot journalism or not. On the other hand, journalists' attitude towards robot journalism is behind considerations for business performance and changes of external market environment. Decision-makers in newspaper companies seemed to be insensitive to sunken costs with regard to the introduction of robot journalism. In terms of alternatives, a decrease in the number of human journalists after the adoption of robot-writers is most likely to be selected as an employment strategy by newspaper companies. The fall in the number of human journalists after adopting robots is most likely to be selected as an employment strategy.

The study investigated the N-Screen strategies of paid digital contents of foreign newspapers belonging to advanced companies: USA, United Kingdom, and Japan. This research employed the time to launch paid digital content business, whether or not to segment market, and 4p marketing mix strategies for analyzing the strategies. The results show that the strategies, starting around the year 2000, had experience chasm, and then revived since the year 2010, when the penetration rate of mobile devices proliferated. Most newspapers still supply contents under the assumption that they paly in a mass market. The items of paid digital contents are mainly composed of e-paper and digital contents. Regarding the price strategy, soft paywall and combination paywall are largely used. Distribution strategy is subject to whether or not to discriminate the path of digital contents. As for promotion strategy, bundling strategy with newspaper is mostly utilized. The difference between western countries and Japan was found in term of the free trial service.

This research examines factors affecting behavioral intention to use integrated platform (IP), which is one of the business models regarding paid digital contents, based on extended United Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2). IP is a service which is designed to make digital content charged. It combines digitalized format of newspaper, premium news or behind news, and additional information. The results of this paper show that effort expectancy, social influence and hedonic motivation have positive relationship with behavioral intention to use IP (BI). Satisfaction with newspaper shows negative relationship with BI, which means that newspaper and IP can be replaced with each other. Newspaper subscribers tend to have higher BI than non-subscribers. Performance expectancy, gender, age, and satisfaction with website do not have significant effect on BI.

This paper investigated customers` willingness to pay (WTP) for the integrated news platform, which is a paid digital news service provided by Korean newspapers. The integrated news platform has been widely employed and regarded as an alternative to recover dramatically decreasing sales of newspapers since N-Screen era began. This study employed a conjoint analysis to examine WTP for the integrated news platform and its attributes. According to the results, WPT for the integrated news platform was estimated as 4543.6 won, which is only 30.3% of the real price. Digitalized newspaper and premium news were found to be significant attributes explaining customers` WTP. The results of this paper implies that present marketing strategies for the integrated news platform of Korean newspapers should be reconsidered and revised.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility for Korean entertainment companies to enter into debt financing. In particular, this study focuses on the possibility of issuing corporate bond and the asset backed securities (ABS) by two leading entertainment companies in Korea: SM Entertainment (SM) and YG Entertainment (YG). Depth interview with specialists such as investment bankers (IB), bond brokers, and financial directors and executives in entertainment companies was done. The results show that IB`s opinion on issuing corporate bonds by SM and YG is positive. However, they may need to meet four requirements including maintaining stable cash-flow, diversifying sales source, enhancing accounting and legal transparencies and verifying managerial capabilities. In addition, Psy` s `Gangnam style`, his global hit song, turns out to have high potential as a base asset for ABS.