IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ecolab/v24y2013i4p517-532.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From censorship to active support: The Korean state and Korea’s cultural industries

Author

Listed:
  • Seung-Ho Kwon
  • Joseph Kim

    (Korea Research Institute, The University of New South Wales, Australia)

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenal growth of Korean cultural industries and their export to East Asia and other parts of the world. In the early years of industrialisation, culture was used by the authoritarian regime as a form of ideological support. Strict controls were exercised over cultural production and presentation. Controls were later relaxed as the regime used entertainment and sport as popular distractions. However, the increase in television ownership, the growth of domestic electronics and home appliance industries, and rising incomes (especially among the middle class) provided the material base for the growth of cultural industries following democratisation in the 1990s. Cultural industries became key drivers of economic growth, innovation and employment, and were strongly promoted and supported by government in the style of the developmental state. The result was burgeoning production and international trade across a wide spectrum of cultural industries – film, television drama, animation, video games and music. As a reflection of the increasing integration of Korea into world markets, the government also had to ensure compliance with international trade regulations and clamp down on piracy. Today, the Korean Wave of popular culture has reached consumers in all parts of the world and makes a significant contribution to Korean gross domestic product and exports.

Suggested Citation

  • Seung-Ho Kwon & Joseph Kim, 2013. "From censorship to active support: The Korean state and Korea’s cultural industries," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 24(4), pages 517-532, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:24:y:2013:i:4:p:517-532
    DOI: 10.1177/1035304613508873
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1035304613508873
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1035304613508873?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. O. Yul Kwon, 2010. "The Korean Economy in Transition," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1956.
    2. Sung-Young Kim, 2012. "Transitioning from fast-follower to innovator: The institutional foundations of the Korean telecommunications sector," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 140-168.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Larson, James F. & Park, Jaemin, 2014. "From developmental to network state: Government restructuring and ICT-led innovation in Korea," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 344-359.
    2. Rajiv Kumar, 2023. "Taking the developmental state seriously: Why South Korea outperformed neoliberal regulatory states in rapid coronavirus disease 2019 vaccinations and saving lives," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 26(4), pages 319-340, December.
    3. Marian Negoita, 2014. "Globalization, state, and innovation: An appraisal of networked industrial policy," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 8(3), pages 371-393, September.
    4. David B. Audretsch & Antje Fiedler, 2023. "Does the entrepreneurial state crowd out entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 573-589, February.
    5. Saem Lee & Trung Thanh Nguyen & Patrick Poppenborg & Hio-Jung Shin & Thomas Koellner, 2016. "Conventional, Partially Converted and Environmentally Friendly Farming in South Korea: Profitability and Factors Affecting Farmers’ Choice," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-18, July.
    6. Jonek Kowalska, Izabela, 2015. "Challenges for long-term industry restructuring in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin: What has Polish coal mining achieved and failed from a twenty-year perspective?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 135-149.
    7. Douglas R Gress, 2015. "Knowledge bases, regional innovation systems, and Korea's solar PV industry," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1432-1449, December.
    8. Jisung Park & Seongsu Kim, 2015. "The differentiating effects of workforce aging on exploitative and exploratory innovation: The moderating role of workforce diversity," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 481-503, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cultural industries; developmental state; Korea;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure
    • L52 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Industrial Policy; Sectoral Planning Methods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ecolab:v:24:y:2013:i:4:p:517-532. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.