• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.9-43
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• 2019

Web novels are one of the most actively adapted genre novels under a new medium called the Internet. Research on cultural content implemented on top of digital media is naturally closely related to environmental changes in digital media. The same goes for Web novels sparked by the identity of Web platforms. Especially in the case of web novels, the platform itself that provides them has triggered direct changes in genre code and reading patterns. From this perspective, this thesis wanted to examine the formation process and strategic features of web novels, which became content and products on the web platform environment. First of all, through the formation process ranging from communication novels to Internet novels and web novels, I arranged the transition to digital media and the change of genre novel market. This was an attempt to extract that Web novels not only have continuity as genre novels, but also have a turning point as digital content. Web novels are digital content that internalizes the values of the Web 2.0 era. It should also be a core product that grows the pie in the market in its own right. This paper noted that web novels are content that embodies these consumption values. So this thesis considered about what is the visualization and commercialization strategy of the web-based novels that is currently formed, and what is the current status of the web-based romance novels as the content and the product that is driving OSMU most actively in the process of commercialization. Through this process, I found that the greatest characteristic of web novels as genre novels that have evolved into digital content is their division and crack of genre.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.435-441
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• 2020

This study attempts to analyze by the gender political point of view of the recent film, 'A Special Lady', focusing on the case of setting up women as the main characters in the 2000s Korean film noir genre. Concretely, this study conducted a narrative analysis focusing on the three elements of genre film, the identity of the characters and their family relationships, and the Oedipal trajectory. The film, 'A Special Lady', has the narrative about the maternal love assigned to female protagonist, and that emphasizes male pure love. And the film shows the flashbacks concerning to motherhood that prove the biological identity of the female protagonist, and signs that weaken the castration fear resulting from male voyeurism. Further, the film depicts the fragmentation of identity and the cracking of family relationships, revealing the confusion of gender identity and the narrative degeneration into family melodrama. Meanwhile, the film fails to complete the feminine Oedipal trajectory by reducing the female character's motherhood to a biological one instead of expanding it into an alternative quality embracing the other. These findings suggest that the korean gangster is closely related to gender politics and is not completely out of gender bias.

• Women's Studies Review
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.3-35
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• 2012

This paper attempts to examine complicated relations which the nineteenth-century English novel of female development has with the Bildungsroman genre, and to discuss that the story of female development effectively realizes the potential dynamics of the genre. It looks into the history of discussions on the Bildungsroman which began at the end of the nineteenth-century in Germany and developed among twentieth-century Anglo-American critics, and those on the female development which didn't start until feminist criticism ventured out at the end of 1970s, and have developed into various perspectives ever since in accordance to the progress of feminist criticism. In general, Bildungsroman criticism considers that it portrays the process how the protagonist develops self and achieves an accommodation with society. However, this paper points out that the Bildungsroman is the narrative form which represents conflicts between self and society caused by idealizing the infinitive possibility of self-determination while simultaneously presenting the limited goal of social integration. It argues that the subversive dynamics of the genre can give full play to its potential when it reveals contradictions and tensions between individual subjectivity and integration into society and connects them with criticism of political and social structures. It is the stories of female Bildungshelds depicted by nineteenth-century female writers that exquisitely embody the subversive potential of the Bildungsroman. They acutely experience alienation from society where independency or autonomy is fundamentally impossible because the ideology of separate spheres does not allow them to live a meaningful life economically and sociologically outside the marriage. An example of a female Bildungsheld whose conflicts between development of self and integration with society are doubled by gender is Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is a representative Bildungsroman with subversive dynamics, which tells the story of female development but splits itself through various techniques inserting contradictory and opposite meanings, thus resignifying female development and questioning social and political structures.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.77
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• pp.255-288
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• 2016

Korean mass media has represented foreigners in their documentaries, entertainment shows, situational comedies, and dramas for long time, while the representations created plenty of controversies. Alleged West-oriented racism found from various televison programs may be one of them. Recently, however, more Korean television shows began to incorporate the ideas of multi-culturalism. This paper is an attempt to explore how television audiences interpret multi-culturalism reflected in the media. More specifically, this is a case study of JTBC's , a show featuring foreigners debating on various topics regarding Korean culture. Particularly, it focuses on disputes over the producers' decision to play 'Kimigayo' (the national anthem of Japan, which is also considered as a symbol of Japanese militaristic past) when introduced a new Japanese panel. Critical discourse analysis was adoped as the main research method, and researchers found that audiences draw certain guidelines in accepting multi-cultural aspects. If and when these aspects overstep the line, they tend to abandon it without hesitance. In the case of 'Kimigayo,' it was ethno-centrism and/or anti-Japanes sentiments which made multi-culturalsim much weaker. It does not mean that multi-culturalism was replaced-or defeated-by nationalism, but show the 'vulnerability' of multi-culturalsim. Multi-culturalism is not as concretely rooted in Korean society as many people have claimed or hoped. The research has its own limitations as a case study, but it is hoped to stimulate other researchers to keep their eyes on media and multi-culturalsim in Korea.