By Kim Sam-o
SYDNEY ― Unlike the United State, for instance, Australia is not a big power. So the Korea-Australia Year of Friendship 2011 was not a pompous and high-profile one. A closer look at the scene, however, offers an immensely useful case study for Korea and, for that matter, other non-Western emergent nations.
Last year Korea managed to stage an unprecedented number of cultural events at the Australian end. As usual, Korean groups from home as well as those in Australia chose Sydney ― the largest Australian city and the stronghold of the 120,000 Korean-Australian community ― for the venues of most of the broad array of 40-plus events held in succession throughout the year.
The list of 40 included Korean film festivals in Sydney and Melbourne as well as an exhibition of 163 ancient Korean cultural treasure items at Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum. The latter undertaking alone, according to Korean officials, cost Korea $1.2 million to prepare.
As a Korean resident in Australia, I have closely followed the events with a few preconceptions from the start. My primary concern was with how the Australian mainstream mass media would cover them.
My early predictions have turned out not to be wide of the mark: Western media would report events from a country with no cultural kinship or proximity in a minimal way or else often with negative overtones. Western media, always eagerly looking for an issue rather than an event, would be unmoved by such an emotional theme as mutual friendship.
This is a sharp contrast to the way the pro-Western Korean media normally do. They go out of their way to report similar events in Korea by a Western advanced country much more favorably and lavishly.
Let's take a few examples. Two Korean media, a major television channel and a popular monthly magazine, aired a special TV program and published a special supplement, respectively, to commemorate the year. These were not reciprocated by any of the Australian counterparts.
Few of the entire events, except for three, have received local media attention. The performances by large Korean traditional dance troupes and a pop star group better known as K-pop went unnoticed in Australia’s two most influential newspapers ― the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian in Sydney.
The world-renowned K-pop group had dramatically strengthened its force to close to 60 members by embracing 12 different teams for the Sept. 12 performance at Sydney’s iconic Olympic Park, which drew a huge crowd of fans of 20,000. It was widely publicized at home. The story, however, failed to find its way into the two major newspapers.
Most Koreans here feel that not all of the news treatments of the three events reported were proper either. To coincide with the Year of Friendship, the Korean government early in April opened Korean Cultural Center at its premises with a floor space of 1,000 square meters on Sydney’s busy Elizabeth Street in a gala ceremony.
Then-Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choung Byoung-gug attended the 17th in its series worldwide. The one-column 280-words story reporting the opening under the amusing headline “Softpower Offensive” brought back a few of the country’s unpleasant memories of the past, but did not say much about what nice jobs the office could do. This style of writing in reporting an inauguration of an organization from a friendly nation would be considered as an exception in Korean journalism.
The return of the internationally acclaimed soprano Sumi Jo for a concert appearance at Sydney’s Opera House generated considerable media interests. She was well received by the Herald with two stories, which is a dispatch from its own correspondent in Rome splashed over its arts and entertainment page.
But her story printed in the other major Australian newspaper seemed a bit dubious. The 370-word article reminded readers of allegedly her previous several unexplained and sudden cancellations of performances in Australia.
Why does this matter? Korea at this disadvantage in its relations with not only Australia but also most key Western countries ― notably America, England, France, Germany ― will have enormous implications for its efforts to upgrade its international image by promoting cultural exchanges. After all, mass media are the central channel through which people learn about a foreign country.
There is more than one reason behind the disparity in this area. First and foremost, the pattern of the Australian media coverage so far described well fits into the classic theory of imbalanced news flows between developed and underdeveloped nations or between the centers and peripheries of the world. Previous studies also point to Western media harping more on bad news than positive development in reporting Third World nations, quite an opposite to what the opposite numbers of the latter do.
Korea is neither less developed nor peripheral in relation to Australia. As far as the perception of the newsrooms of most Australian media go, however, this may be so ― particularly in the cultural sphere. Though geographically isolated, Australia is part of the Anglos-Saxon and Celtic English speaking world under which strong cultural influences Korea has lived for so long.
News and trade highly correlate with each other. Indeed corresponding to the substantial growth in the two-way trade during the past decades, international news flows between the two countries have steadily increased. The economy and commerce, and the security issues related to Korean unification all closely linked to Australia’s national interests.
However, the Australian media have focused heavily on the negative aspects of Korean society ― namely, violence and scandals, leadership struggle as well as bizarre occurrences in the South-North rivalry and confrontation process on the peninsula.
It is amazing that the Korean media have been consistent over the decades in portraying the Down Under largely as a stable, eco-friendly and educationally advanced society with its beautiful natural environment.
Perhaps Korea has become too used to this inequitable situation. I have never heard that the issue has been publicly discussed in Korea.
The writer is a Ph.D. in communication studies. He is a freelancing Korean journalist associated with the Australian edition of The Hankook Ilbo as editorial advisor. His email address is karckim@optusnet.com.au.