• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.65-84
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• 2024

As the number of Instagram users continues to grow, an increasing number of public libraries are establishing and maintaining accounts on the Instagram platform. The objective of this study is to classify and analyze the content of Instagram posts from 14 public libraries that are actively engaged on the platform. A classification of post types, divided into seven large, 16 medium, and 76 small categories, was employed to analyze the content of posts on each library's Instagram account from the account's inception to the end of December 2023. The analysis revealed that library posts focused on a few items, including book recommendations, library introductions and news, and event announcements of literary and arts programs. Program event announcements and reviews, book recommendations and reading programs were found to be highly correlated with user engagement and teen reading programs. Based on these findings, it is recommended that future Instagram posts should be more user-centered and interactive, and that libraries should actively promote their events on Instagram and other social media platforms.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.78
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• pp.206-242
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• 2016

This study dealt with the U.S. government's book translation project as a part of its public diplomacy to gain the Korean people's 'minds and thoughts' in the midst of cultural Cold War from the end of World War II to the late 1950s. It was found that the U.S. book translation project was begun during the U.S. military occupation of South Korea, though with minimum efforts, and reached its peak in the late 1950s, In general, the purposes of the U.S. book translation project in South Korea was as follows: to emphasize the supremacy of American political and economic systems; to criticize the irrationality of communism and conflicts in the communist societies; to increase the Korean people's understanding of the U.S. foreign policies; to publicize the achievement of the U.S. people in the areas of arts, literature, and sciences. In the selection of books for translation, any ones were excluded which might contradict to U.S. foreign policy or impair U.S. images abroad. It must be noted that publications of a few Korean writers' books were supported by the project, if they were thought to be in service for its purposes. Even some Japanese books, which were produced by the U.S. book translation project in Japan, were utilized for the best effects of the project in South Korea. It may be conceded that the U.S. book translation project contributed a little bit to the compensation for the dearth of knowledge and information in South Korea at that time. However, the project may have distorted the Korean people's perspectives toward the U.S. and world, owing to the book selection in accordance with the U.S. government's policy guidance.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.13-51
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• 2021

As a case study, this paper historicizes the film culture in Namchon district in Keijo(京城) based on a preliminary research on the film ephemera produced during the colonial period. Through cross-examining articles appeared in Japanese newspapers and magazines at the time, this paper empirically reconstructs the Japanese settlers' film culture in Keijo, a colonial city whose cultural environment was ethnically divided into 'Bukchon' and 'Namchon.' During the silent era, movie theaters in the Namchon district not only played a role of cinema chain through which films imported and distributed by Japanese film companies were circulated and exhibited but also served as a cultural community for Japanese settlers who migrated to a colony. The film ephemera issued by each theater not only provided information about the movie program, but also connected these Japaneses settlers in colonial city, Keijo to the homogeneous space and time in Japan proper. Both as a minority and colonizer in a colony, these Japanese settlers experienced a sense of 'unity' that could 'distinguish' their ethnic identity differentiated from Koreans through watching movies in this ethnically segregated cultural environment. In doing so, they were also able to connect themselves to their homeland in Japan Proper, despite on a cultural level. This is a cultural practice that strengthens a kind of long distance nationalism. Examining Japanese film culture through film ephemera would not only contribute to the previous scholarship on modern theater culture and spectatorship established since the 2000s, but also be a meaningful attempt to find ways and directions for film history research through non-film materials.

• Journal of International Area Studies (JIAS)
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.135-156
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• 2010

While there are a few ways of giving meanings to the term, "Altai" ranging from a language family to a national residing around the Altai Mountains in Russian Federation, and to the people speaking the language or the whole area where they live, there have been controversial debates whether it is a meaningful categorization. This paper argues that the basic cause lying beneath the controversies is the underdevelopment of the subject that identifies itself as a representative of the whole area where the Altaic language family is spoken. It might be true, as some Korean and Russian scholars insist, that what deserves to be called Altaic culture (or civilization) has provided a common culture and mutual interactions with the people. However, the Altaic people failed to constitute themselves as a meaningful modern group, that is a nation, and they did not fully develop national consciousness, As a result, although their way of life may be regarded as an origin of various cultures across North-East Asia, Altaic culture is not sufficient to give a momentum to claim for cultural initiative in the region. This comes at least partly from the reconfiguration of ethnic identity through a Soviet type of modernization and its geopolitical situation surrounded by super-powers such as China and Russia, as well as belated import of religions such as Buddhism and Christianity. From a wide perspective, the trouble about delimiting an area is not unique in Altai, but universally found in anywhere, as far as area studies are concerned. The delimitation of an area is not a natural outcome of physical environment but an artificial production of how cultural-political relationships have been distributed. Therefore, while the case of Alai has its own specificities, its implications that a national or regional boundary in area studies should not be taken for granted may be applied to other areas.