4.2. Korea’s Democratization and Media
4.2.4. The 5th Republic and Broadcasting Control
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dog. Adjusting itself to the changed political situation, rather than insisting on its free dom, the Korean press accepted its role as a “voluntary servant” of the ruling govern ment.
4.2.4. The 5th Republic and Broadcasting Control
Korean broadcasting in the early 1980s, A brief explanation of the Korean media in the early 1980s is needed to better understand the political context of audience movements in Korea. In particular, it provides some background for the emergence of the television reception fee boycott movement in the 1980s, an unprecedented collective campaign. As is commonly seen in developing countries, political upheaval exerts a great impact on the media. Eighteen years of dictatorship by President Park Chung-hee finally came to an end when he was assassinated on 26 October 1979. This incident marked a turning point in the media circle in that media policy drastically changed thereafter. The vacuum of power was filled by an army general, Chun Doo-hwan, who staged a coup d’etat. Even before he was officially inaugurated as President, General Chun placed the media under centralized state control. As the new government lacked popular support, it never tried to conceal its explicit intention of placing the media under its control.
As a result, the Korean media experienced major changes in 1980 to their structure, ownership, regulatory regimes and journalistic practices. The radical overhaul of the structures of the Korean media can be summarized as follow
Firstly, considering that the best way to control the media is through the revision
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of media-related laws and regulations, the government enacted the Basic Press Law which comprised all existing media laws. The government argued that the law was introduced to place ‘greater emphasis on defining the responsibility rather than on the freedom of the press’ (Kim et al., 1994 p 186). However, the law had been heavily criticized for facilitating the government’s control over the media and journalists until it was abolished in 1987.
Secondly, the government established the Korean Broadcasting Advertising Corp oration (KOBACO) to control the television advertising market. As broadcasting stati ons were prohibited from airing any commercials on their own, they had to entrust the ir advertising to the Corporation, which charged a commission of 15.20 percent on ev ery television advertisement.
Thirdly, the government had brought the broadcast media under its control by coercively integrating commercial stations into the public service. Using such language as the responsibility and accountability of broadcasting, the government integrated four commercial radio stations and TBC-TV (Tongyang Broadcasting Company) into the KBS. In addition, the KBS obtained 65 percent of MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) shares. Indeed, all of the nation’s broadcasting systems were amalgamated under the control of the KBS. With this integration of broadcasting stations, Korean broadcasting entered the era of public service with two major public broadcasters (KBS and MBC) and minor religious radio stations (Kang 2002). Fourth, journalists were sacked for being critical of the government by media barons who were in no position to neglect government orders and pressures. The Ministry of Culture and Information secretly ordered press owners and presidents of public broadcasters to dismiss journalists who refused censorship. By carrying out a massive
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dismissal of journalists, the government intended to tame insubordinate journalists. As the result of the coercive policy of the government, 305 journalists had to leave their work(Kang 2002). In the case of broadcasting, KBS and MBC sacked 135 and 111 employees respectively.
Finally, the government regulated the inflow of foreign news by integrating news agencies into the Yonhap News Agency. As a result, citizens were not able to hear and read foreign news which was detrimental to the government.
Along with above-mentioned coercive measures, the government used a ‘carrot’
policy by proposing economic benefits to media organizations and journalists. By building barriers to the entry of large companies into the media market, the government guaranteed stable growth of established media institutions. Tax benefits were also given to media lords and journalists: the government lowered the tariff from 20 percent to 4 percent as a favor to newspaper owners who imported high-speed rotary press machines; and journalists were given an exemption from taxation on 20 percent of their income (Joo et al., 1997: 187.8). Furthermore, KOBACO raised the so-called ‘public fund’, part of which was used to offer special favours to media organizations and journalists (Joo et al., 1997: 193.4).
With the integration of commercial broadcasting stations into the KBS in 1980, t he KBS, until then financed only by reception fees from the viewers, was allowed to b roadcast paid adverts which later became a major source of income. Public discontent with the dual financing system of the KBS contributed to the rise of a collective camp aign for the boycott of the television reception fee in the mid-1980s. This campaign w ill be dealt with in more detail later. More importantly, many prominent journalists joi
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ned active politics at the request of the ruling party. With the inauguration of the 5th Republic, 23 journalists gave up influential careers to enter the Democratic Justice P arty (Lee, 1989: 190). Thus, the government’s control over the media had a great impa ct both on the actual work of journalists and on media owners.
The monopoly of the media market and the collusion between the government and media owners have contributed to the growing alienation of the audiences, and later to the rise of the public outcry for more freedom of the press and democratic broadcasting. So, throughout the early 1980s, there persisted increasing concerns and worries that the media, including the KBS, Korea’s main public broadcasting company, were reflecting the interests of the government and businesses rather than that of the audiences. It would be no exaggeration to describe this state of affairs as a crisis of civic communication. However, on the other hand, it was increasingly clear that formidable pressures were building up from listeners and viewers to push broadcasting towards the democratic principles of fairness, objectivity and impartiality. The disillusionment of the audience, coupled with the unhealthy media environment, finally led to the massive collective movement of television reception fee boycotts in the mid-1980s.