• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.51
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• pp.181-201
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• 2018

The cartoon industry in Korea has continued to decline due to the contraction of published comics market and decrease in the number of comic books rental stores until the 2000s when it rapidly started to experience qualitative changes and quantitative growth due to the emergence of webtoon. The market size of webtoon industry, valued at 420 billion won in 2015, is expected to grow to 880.5 billion won by 2018. Notably, most cartoonists who draw cartoon strips are using digital devices and producing scripts in data, thereby overcoming the geographical, spatial and physical limitation of contents. As a result, a favorable environment for the creation of local ecosystems is generated. While the infrastructures of human resources are steadily growing by region, cartoon industries that are supported by the government policy have shown good performance combined with factors of creative infrastructures in local areas such as webtoon experience centers, webtoon campuses and webtoon creation centers, etc. Nevertheless, it is true that cartoon infrastructures are substantially based on a capital area which leads to an imbalanced structure of cartoon industry. To see the statistics, companies of offline cartoon business in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province make up 87%, except for distribution industry. In addition, companies of online cartoon business which are situated outside of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province form merely 7.5%. Studies and research on local webtoon are inadequate. The existing studies on local webtoon usually focus on its industrial and economic values, mentioning the word "local" only sometimes. Therefore, this study looked into the current status of local webtoon of the present time for the current state of local cartoon ecosystem, middle and long-term support from the government, and an alternative in the future. Main challenges include the expansion of opportunities to enjoy cartoon cultures, the independence of cartoon infrastructure, and the settlement of regionally specialized cartoon cultures. It means that, in order to enable the cartoon ecosystem to settle down in local areas, it is vital to utilize and link basic infrastructures. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider independence and autonomy beyond the limited support by the government. Finally, webtoon should be designated as a culture, which can be a new direction of the development of local webtoon. Furthermore, desirable models should be continuously researched and studied, which are suitable for each region and connect them with regional tourism, culture and art industry. It will allow the webtoon industry to soft land in the industry. Local webtoon, which is a growth engine of regions and main contents of the fourth industrial revolution, is expected to be a momentum for the decentralization of power and reindustrialization of regions.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.13
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• pp.181-197
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• 2008

Government set violence as one of the important criteria when it rates movies or TV programs for juveniles. The purpose of selling this criteria is to prohibit the violence in TV programs or movies from affecting the actual behavior of juveniles. However, it is still under discussion how much the violence in broadcasting media actually affects juvenile violence. Korea once carried out a social experiment on juvenile violence media. Back in 1970, violent animation was popular in Korea and Korean government completely banned televising violent animations from September 1980 in an effort to prevent juvenile violence. Investigating the effect of this policy on juvenile violence would draw some implications. The result shows that the policy to ban violent animation in September 1980 didn't have meaningful effect on the trend of juvenile violence. The implication from this paper is that there is no certain cause-and-effect relationship between violent animation and juvenile violence. Another implication is that In-depth discussion is needed if this governmen4 policy is violating the juvenile's right to choose public media.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.11
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• pp.11-28
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• 2007

The article concerns the public policy for the development of the arts educator in the field of the comic and animation education. The comic and animation education programs are focused on the promotion of the creativity and communication skills of the student in terms of the arts education. The article seeks to examine the case on the support program for the comic and animation educators, which has been managed by Korea Arts & Culture Education Service(KACES) since 2005. The forty two educators were surveyed. As a result, the support program of the KACES has an effect on the educator's recognition of the comic and animation education in the positive way. The most of the educators suggest that the support program should try to develop the comic and animation educator job as a special work with the full time job. In this repect, the article recommend the policy alternatives such as the promotion of the education program R & D, the knowledge and information system, training system and the establishment of the governance system.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.10
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• pp.277-285
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• 2016

The purpose of this study is to quantitatively and empirically investigate whether cartoon-realism, which is referred to as a guideline for avoiding the uncanny valley phenomenon, is actually effective. An experiment was carried out to investigate whether or not methods that try to realistically express the texture of human skin while making 3D models whose outward appearance abstract like a cartoon actually reduce the negative sentiments associated with the uncanny valley phenomenon. The results found that when human skin textures were applied to cartoon-type 3D models, the degree of eeriness significantly increased (p<0.05), while there was no change in the degree of human likeness. When cartoon-style skin textures were applied to human-type 3D models, there was no significant difference in the degree of eeriness, but the degree of human likeness significantly decreased (p<0.05). These results show that, cartoon realism is not actually effective, and rather creates a perceptual conflict and induces the uncanny valley phenomenon. The results of this study are expected to be used as quantitative and empirical data for developing design guidelines that will overcome the uncanny valley phenomenon in the future.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.15
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• pp.139-150
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• 2009

Today, China can reestablish its previously prosperous Chinese animation tradition and can make a great plan of recreating earlier characteristic Chinese animation style. In China, TV culture was already here to stay and a large number of foreign countries' animations were entering the Chinese market. Presently, Chinese animation was recognized as time order of 4points: Animation policy, Animation industry, Animation market, and culture. My studies about these issues show the Chinese animation industry has entered an advancing country. I have especially researched into solving these issues with the Korean and Chinese animation & market. As result, I have concluded that the Chinese animation industry must engage itself in foreign animation styles and global market in order to further advance its industry. To help raise its production quality & technique status, I recommend the Chinese government actually give the donations promised to the Chinese animation and culture industries as well as the education system now.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.19
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• pp.199-224
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• 2010

Since the mid 1990s, Korea has recognized the importance of content industry and has carried out several support policies. Especially, the support system for the comic industry has been systematically organized, and organizations for this area have tried to extend the type of support programs and objects as well. One of the remarkable changes made by these support programs is to encourage the remaking of old comics, which mostly are published comics in 1970s and 1980s, into the new format, the webtoon. Some of revitalized old comics are open to public through several portal web sites, and people can reach them easily by free. This research is to consider support programs run by policy organizations that are managed in the regional level. This research mainly deals with the type of support programs for the remade old comics and, at the same time, considers the meanings of this support programs for the Korean comic industry.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.33
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• pp.597-616
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• 2013

Character industry is not only knowledge-based industry chiefly with copyrights but also motive power for creative economy to take a role functionally over the fields of industries because it has industrial characteristic as complement product to promote sale value in manufacturing industry and service industry and increase profit on sales. Since 2003, the national policy related to character has aimed to maximize effect among connected industries, extend its business abroad, enforce copyrights through the improvement of marketing system, develop industrial infrastructure through raising quality of character products. With the result of this policy, the successful cases of connected contents have been crystallized and domestic character industry has stepped up methodically since 2007. It is needed to reset the scales of character industry and industrial stats because there are more know-how of self industry promotion and more related characters through strategy of market departmentalization starting with cartoon, animation, games, novels, movies and musicals. Especially, The Korea government set our target for 'Global Top Five Character Power' since 2009 and has started to carry out to find global star characters, support to establish network among connected industries, diversify promotion channels, and develop licensing business. Particularly, since 2013, There have been prospered the indoor character theme park with time management just like character experimental marketing or Kids cafes using characters, the demand market of digital character focusing on SNS emoticon, and the performance market for character musical consistently. Moreover, The domestic and foreign illegal black markets on off-line have been enlarged, so we need another policy alternative. To prepare for the era of exploding character demand market and diversifying platform, it is needed to set up a solid strategy that is required the elements of policy changes in character industry to vitalize character industry and support new character design and connected contents. the following shows that the elements of policy changes related to the existing policy, the current position of market. Nowadays, the elements of policy changes in domestic character industry are that variety of consumers in the digital character market according to platform diversification, Convergence contents of character goods for the Korean waves, legalization of the illegal black contents market, and controling the tendency of consumers in departmentalized market. This can help find the policy issue entirely deferent with the existing character powers like US, Japan or Europe. In its final analysis, the alternatives are the promotion of models with contract copyrights of domestic and foreign connected contents, the diversification of profit models of platform economy, the additive development of target market related to enlarging the Korean waves, and the strategy of character market for the age-specific tendency according to developing character demand market.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.26
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• pp.157-172
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• 2012

In order to overcome the limits of domestic image content market, entering the global market is inevitable and expanding our market volume in foreign market as in domestic market is an important factor that determines the future of Korea image content industry. Suggestions and discussions on policy for investments on domestic image content should be carried out to resolve such situation. Specially, the reason why cooperative system of central government and local government is in dire need is because cultural content industry support measures of central government is unsatisfactory and local government is not adequate enough to respond to the global environment because investment resources of small and medium enterprises in cultural content is insufficient. This paper intends to study cases of policy promoted by domestic local government and support cases of foreign countries when domestic image content industry is expanding into the global market, and to search for solutions from integrated functional perspective of central government and local government for international co-production environment. This study suggests the necessity of political connection in terms of central government strengthening assistance policy on dispersed policy of local government who operates 11 cultural industry promotion districts throughout the country. First, this study suggests the possibility of expanded international co-production by central government and local government through investment(fund).

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.39
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• pp.27-58
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• 2015

The crisis in profit and funding for animation is in evidence around the world. The change in media environment has forced broadcasting advertising revenue down and animation viewers spread out. Now, animation players in the strongest position are either the US major studios, or producers benefiting from domestic support schemes. Government support is available in many countries because many governments believe that support for domestic animation carries both economic and cultural benefits. This paper is designed to suggest new policy schemes for Korean animation industry. The new paradigm of animation policy needs a new perspective on content industry as a whole, not centered on the animation itself. The researchers on public policy for culture, audiovisual and content industry argued that the government should, (i) play the role of facilitator for virtuous cycle of industry value chain, (ii) provide fiscal support through automatic and selective schemes, (iii) provide tax benefit to strengthen the competitiveness of industry, and (iv) enforce the broadcasters to contribute to domestic programming and financing. Comparative analysis on French and Canadian audiovisual policy supports such arguments, and animation industry of two countries are enjoying the high audience ratings and sustainable production volume. From the analysis, this paper suggests the new government schemes for Korean animation industry, which are, (i) securing the public funding for fiscal support, (ii) introduction of automatic production support, (iii) modification of broadcasting quota, (iv) broadcaster's performance envelope and production quota, and (v) tax benefit as indirect support.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.9
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• pp.59-79
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• 2005

The paper concerns the role model of the local cultural industry agencies, which were established by the local government for the purpose of fostering the regional cultural industries. In this article, the term of the innovative milieu refers to the interaction and network system for the creation, diffusion and application of knowledge. In doing so, the case on the Gyeonggi Digital Content Agency(GDCA), which has managed the Digital Animation Academy and the cultural heritage based digital content development project will be examined in terms of the network between academic and industry. As a result of the case study, it is not certain that the activities and policy programs of the GDCA has affected the improvement of the knowledge and network environment in the field of cultural content industries. This demonstrates industries rather than the innovation system as a whole. In this respect, the paper develops the Cultural Content R & D Network Model for the improvement of the creative partnership among universities, companies and public sector organizations. In addition, the paper suggests that the Digital Animation Academy should be managed in terms of the improvement of the innovative environment of the regional cultural content cluster.