Sino-NK

JTBC is at the less controversial end of the jongpyeonsa spectrum. | Image: JTBC/reddot 21

Under legislative changes rushed through [날치기 통과] the National Assembly in July 2009, South Korean print media companies were granted the right to operate broadcast media. The incumbent administration of former President Lee Myung-bak justified the move in part by stating that it wished to “foster global media companies.”

Following the legal revisions, the launch of four jongpyeonsa [종편사], or approximately, “comprehensive media broadcasters” (one each owned by the conservative dailies Chosun Ilbo (TV Chosun), Joongang Ilbo (JTBC), and Donga Ilbo (Channel-A), and one by the business daily MK (MBN)) in 2011 was, the same government contended, going to create fiscally beneficial synergies of print and broadcast media. It would also bring domestic broadcasters “up to global standards” (another classic phrase in peninsular political rhetoric) and halt the monopoly on educational and publicly oriented programs previously held by terrestrial broadcasters KBS, run by the state, and MBC, its nominally private rival.[1]

In other words, President Lee adroitly positioned his government’s policy within a context that South Korea’s pro-market, globally oriented middle class would readily support; namely, rapid modernization through internationalization. It is a rhetorical device used constantly to justify all kinds of policy shifts. Anyone observing the way the government of President Park Geun-hye placed an “internationalization” [국제화] fig leaf over the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex earlier this autumn will readily grasp the political maneuvering involved.

However, two years after their creation, the four jongpyeon channels are a source of singular and near continuous discontent. A new clutch of articles carried by Kyunghyang Sinmun has outlined why this is; the first accuses the political right of outright “lying” or “falsifying” [허언] the benefits that the new channels would bring. It lists four notable grievances:

• The new channels deliver low-quality programming and have failed to achieve the synergies that they originally promised, meaning they are now in various states of financial turmoil;

• As a result they constantly place the emphasis on “relatively cheaper” studio-based entertainment programs over educational and informative content;

• They intensify the [by implication pre-existing] media oligopoly of conservatism and the far-right [극우] with their very existence and content; and

• They have created far fewer jobs than projected at the time of their formation.

The other article, which I do not examine here, reveals not only how the jongpyeon channels have dashed the expectations of opinion formers from political and administrative spheres, but also how formerly bullish channel management no longer wish to take calls from inquiring journalists.

Quite apart from this kind of full frontal attack on the jongpyeon world, it is equally fascinating to see the multivariate ways in which arguments over media access play out in South Korea. For example, a recent journal article this author wrote with Dr. Stephen Epstein of Victoria University of Wellington shows how controversy surrounding the jongpyeonsa, especially given their extended production remits, cuts to the heart of conflict over the show “Ije mannareo gamnida [Now on My Way to Meet You].” Delivering a lecture on the subject at SOAS earlier this year, I noted that “Imangap,” which is broadcast by Channel-A, reveals a conflicted schizophrenia about its goals that may derive from its right wing, instinctively anti-communist roots, as well as more than a hint of cultural imperialism vis-à-vis media representations of refugees arriving from less affluent North Korea.

However, nothing the jongpyeonsa could possibly say or do will ever trump the controversy they incited in the run up to May 18, 2013. At the time, two, one TV Chosun and the other Channel-A, broadcast the “news” that hundreds of North Korean commandos had been inserted into Gwangju to help incite clashes between civilian protesters and the South Korean police in May 1980. In the court of progressive public opinion, there has been no rowing back from that one.

Source: Kim, Hyeong-gyu, “[Are the jongpyeon ‘monster broadcasters’ good like this?] To a female lawmaker: ‘nice legs’ ·’North Korea involved at time of 5.18’…nothing but low-grade and distorted” [‘괴물방송’ 종편, 이대로 좋은가] 여성의원에 “각선미 좋다”·“5·18때 북한군 개입”… 저질·왜곡 일쑤], Kyunghyang Sinmun, November 17, 2013.