Politics in Viral Times: #Shigak no. 23

By | June 24, 2015 | No Comments

Graphic showing percentage of those who positively (blue) and negatively (red) appraise the Park Geun-hye administration between May 18 and June 15. | Image: Hankook Ilbo (Twitter account)

Graphic showing percentage of those who positively (blue) and negatively (red) appraise the Park Geun-hye administration between May 18 and June 15. | Image: Hankook Ilbo (Twitter account)

“Shigak” (시각), or “perspective,” is a multilingual data collection effort that uses Twitter to curate sources dealing in key political, social, and economic issues on South Korea. Each monthly issue takes only the most important tweets posted by Sino-NK analysts under the hashtag #시각 and augments them with essential annotations and a small dose of concentrated analysis.

Shigak is edited by Steven Denney and Christopher Green. Back issues can be found on the dedicated page. All users of Twitter are encouraged to adopt the hashtag and take part in the project.

Politics in Viral Times: #Shigak no. 23

by Sino-NK

Summary | The latest issue of Shigak recaps and analyzes some of the top stories in South Korea between May and June. The augmented and analyzed tweets cover the MERS outbreak, with a focus on the political and economic consequences of the viral outbreak first reported on May 20. Additional space is devoted to covering the latest high-altitude sit-in currently taking place atop the National Human Rights Commission in protest of supposedly unlawful hiring practices and for a right to permanent employment and the Ivy League pipe dream-cum small scandal of Korean international student Kim Jung-yoon.

JTBC reports the decline, by percent points, of support for President Park Geun-hye by age cohort over a three week period between the last week of May and the second week of June (or, in other words, the duration of the MERS crisis). This breakdown shows, unsurprisingly, that support has dropped most among those in their 30s (compared to older cohorts). Missing, of course, is the 20s cohort.

One would suspect that the decline in support among those in their 20s would be greater than other age cohorts. Consider, then, Gallup Korea’s polling data for presidential approval ratings from last week (June 16-18). As tweet #2 shows, President Park’s approval rating among those in their 20s is abysmally low (13%), while more than half of those in their 60s still give Park the thumbs up. Using data from the first week of 2015 as a baseline, this constitutes a 7pp drop for the 20s age cohort and a 9pp for those in their 60s. So, while the drop in support was technically larger for the older cohort, only 20% of those in their 20s thought Park was doing a good job to start the year. The data indicates, as the hashtag used in their tweet suggests, “generation gaps” [세대차이].

While President Park’s approval rating has plummeted, Seoul City mayor Park Won-soon’s popularity has soared. The Hankyoreh (cited in the tweets above) summarizes and contextualizes a Gallup Korea poll on support for persons running for president, conducted between June 9 and 13. At 17 percent, the results show Park as the most favored potential presidential candidate (see graph in tweet #2), beating out New Politics Alliance for Democracy party chairperson Moon Jae-in (13%), ruling Saenuri Party chairperson Kim Moo-sung (13%), and entrepreneur-turned politician Ahn Cheol-soo (8%).

It is highly likely that Seoul City Mayor Park’s proactive response to the MERS crisis played a factor in his recent surge in popularity. On June 4, Park held an emergency press conference to discuss the city’s plans to deal with the viral outbreak. He also indirectly criticized the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s response to MERS, scoring political points and popular support in the process. Mayor Park promised a more active response from the Seoul metropolitan government, saying that he would personally lead the response team. Another poll conducted by Real Meter between June 8 and 12 shows a trend similar to Gallup’s: an increasingly popular mayor.

One June 4 and 5, Korean newspapers in the US reported that Kim Jung-yoon, a Korean international student studying at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Virginia, was admitted to both Stanford and Harvard University. South Korean media picked up on her story, dubbing her the “girl genius who got accepted to Stanford and Harvard” [천재 소녀, 하버드-스탠퍼드 동시합격]. During one of her interviews with South Korean radio show, Kim Jung-yoon even claimed that she received a call from Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg. The story turned out to be a fake and the student’s father has apologized.

It was originally reported that Kim would attending Stanford for one to two years and then spend the remainder of her years at Harvard, eventually graduating from the latter. Stanford and Harvard University responded, saying they never accepted Kim. According to the Ivy league institutions, her acceptance letters were forged. Both universities added that no such program exists where a student can simultaneously attend Stanford and Harvard and receive a degree from one of the universities of the student’s choice. It is not clear what made Kim to lie about her acceptance to these universities, but the fabled tale received wide attention in South Korea, a country where high expectations are placed on students to get into top universities.

Korean media was criticized for lack of due diligence.

Two informal workers at Kia Motors, Choi Jeong-myong and Han Kyu-hyop, lowered a moderate sized banner across an electronic display board at the National Human Rights Commission of Korea extorting the chairman of the Hyundai-Kia Automative Group, Chung Mong-koo, to “take responsibility for irregular and regular Kia Motors employees” (see YouTube video below the tweet above). According to a Media Today report, after being accused of unlawfully employing more than 3,000 new workers (the terms of their employment is not specified), Kia promised to move more than 450 of them to regular employment positions (정규직) by next year. This promise, apparently, is not being honored. Rather than permanent employment, Kia is supposedly hiring them under “special employment” (특별채용) conditions–a move consider both dishonest and illegal by the employees and their union representatives.

This “high-altitude sit-in” [고공농성], as it is referred to in the Korean media, is the latest in what is becoming a regular symbolic and cultural expression of discontent with the changes made to the Korean labor market over the last few decades. This sit-in in particular is in protest of unlawful labor practices by Kia Motors.

Changes to labor market conditions across the world, and especially in countries traditionally run along a corporatist model (i.e., labor inclusive), are facing backlash of one kind or another. The new wave of strikes among Germany’s train operators, teachers, and post office workers prompted the prominent German economic sociologist Wolfgang Streeck to write this article for the Guardian.

The Hankook Ilbo is explicit about the primary threat posed by MERS. It isn’t a health threat; it’s economic. “Even before the slump in domestic demand caused by the sinking of the Sewol could recover, another crisis has occurred that will, again, hurt consumption,” writes Lee Young-chang, the article’s author. The article goes on to quote Lim Hui-jeong, a Hyundai Research Institute fellow, as saying, “When the outbreak of such a disease occurs, consumers avoid tourist areas, shopping malls, or areas where crowds gather. If the situation is prolonged, households and firms will cancel or delay consumption and investment.” Lee expounds on this assessment, writing, “This means that if the societal unrest caused by MERS continues, a vicious cycle will be inevitable: decrease in household consumption → decrease in production and investment by firms → reduction in employment.”

In the short-term, the author sees the tourism industry as most vulnerable. The SARS outbreak in China and Hong Kong had serious economic consequences, he notes.  Comparing the economic impact of viral disease outbreaks in other parts of East Asia, Lee finds cause for concern. “The Chinese economic growth rate in the second quarter of 2003 decreased by 2.9 percent from the previous quarter. Hong Kong showed a negative growth rate during the first and second quarters of 2003. Total economic damages caused by SARS… are estimated at around 55 trillion won (about $500 billion).” According to Capital Economics’ Krystal Tan, cited in a Business Insider article published June 16, “tourist arrivals in the first 11 days of [June] have fallen by 25% y/y.”

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