Global Media News

South Korea Wracked with Grief Following Beloved K-Pop Star's Death

South Korea has suffered a new and sudden kind of national disaster, but not the kind that leaves visible damage. A member of the much-loved K-Pop band SHINee, Jonghyun, who died from an apparent suicide earlier this week at age 27. By all accounts, it's a nationwide crisis, with thousands mourning his death. While it is being sensationalized in the same manner that nearly anything involving a K-Pop star is in South Korea, the death is also serving as a look inside South Korea's sky-high suicide rates, and what the pressures of their media-centric culture create.

YonHapNews provided an initial report on the situation Monday evening, detailing the police report that Jonghyun was found unconscious in his apartment in Seoul, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. His death was ruled an apparent suicide, and his suicide note being shared sent ripples of grief throughout the worldwide K-Pop fanbase. The bright side to this tragedy is that his high-profile death has caused many both in and outside of the South Korean entertainment business to look more closely at South Korea's suicide rate, and the pressures the music industry places on its artists.

Matt Stiles' piece for the LA Times explores the reasons behind South Korea's extraordinarily high suicide rate, and its affect on the country. "In 2015, South Korea reported 13,500 suicides, or about 37 a day. Suicides were the second-leading cause of death by injury, after vehicle accidents, according to the World Health Organization." South Korea, like it is in many facets of society, is ahead of the world in suicide rate, and this is especially prevalent among its entertainment industries. A musician friend of Jonghyung's posted his suicide note, which described being tormented by the stresses of fame and success (“No one alive is more tormented nor weaker than myself"). Many look to the management of many South Korean artists to blame, as much of Jonghyung's note described pressure he felt to continue his upward path to success. As the government tries to find a more permanent solution, the South Korean entertainment industry is beginning to take a more serious look at the root of this tragedy to improve.

Russian Ministry Claims 9 International News Organizations Are Foreign Agents

    In retaliation to the recent forced registration of RT to the U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act, the Russian ministry has identified 9 international news outlets as foreign agents. This raises further questions over the media war between the U.S. and Russia and overall press freedom within Russia. These news outlets include government funded international news services such as Voices of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and many of it's services including the Tatar-Bashkir Service.

    On November 25, Putin signed a Russian foreign agent law into action that was quickly passed through parliament. Putin’s law defines an organization as a foreign agent “if it receives funds and/or any other assets from foreign states, foreign governmental organizations, international and foreign organizations, foreign citizens, persons without citizenship." This law was signed into action following the registration of RT but prior to the discrediting of RT. Pictured to the right is an image from a Moscow Times article regarding the recent foreign agent laws.

    Radio Free Europe has not received any further information on why the news organization was found to be a foreign agent. President of RFE has stated, "We will study all communications from the ministry and other Russian official organizations carefully. At the same time, we remain committed to continuing our journalistic work in the interests of providing accurate and objective news to our Russian-speaking audiences." It is not yet known of the next steps these news organizations will be taking in registering with the new Russian foreign agents law.

    The Russian ministry posted 1 sentence on their official website announcing that these news outlets would be required to register with the most recent Russian foreign agent law. It has not been decided over what this registration would require, but many are speculating that news outlets registered with this law would have to submit financial reports and label their content as being published by foreign agents.

    Many global news outlets have reacted negatively to Russia’s foreign agent law such as the Asia Times calling this a Russian media war. In an article titled, "This is a media war that Russia can only lose" M.K. Bhadrakumar states, "isn’t it sad that things have come to such a sorry pass – a country that boasts the Statue of Liberty being in reality so intolerant?" Many free media advocates disapprove of both Russia and the U.S.'s foreign agent laws. The U.S. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has also called for Russia's Justice Ministry to immediately reverse this anti-press action.

    The Moscow Times reports that the Russian media will be adding more news organizations to their list of foreign agents in this upcoming week. Russian Parliament will also be meeting this week to discuss measures that would further discredit U.S. reporters working in Russia, similar to how the U.S. discredited RT. The State Duma has since placed a ban on certain reporters from reporting on the state duma, which is essentially the same as U.S. Congress' discrediting of RT.

Global Media News Webcast #12: Thursday December 14, 2017

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• Rwanda's Forever President: Will Kagame Allow a Free Press?
• Cameroon:  Will Forever President Biya Ever Set the Media Free?
• Russian Retaliation:  Are All Journalists Foreign Agents?
• Chinese LGBT Activists Streaming Live!
• Elite Access to the Internet in North Korea.
• South Korean Bitcoin Mania?
• British Children's TV Battles the Internet.

Global Media News is a weekly webcast covering media news from around the world.  GMN is a production of  Media Studies students from the SUNY College @ Old Westbury.   We scour the web for news about media, journalism and technology.   

We will be back in February with another episode of Global Media News: The New Media Newsroom Edition!

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The Role of Bitcoin in South Korea

South Korea has built a reputation for themselves as a proudly technologically advanced culture, and are ahead of the curve in that regard. The lull of a tech haven continues to attract visitors from all over the world, and South Korea remains an example of how to successfully integrate technological advances into their culture. One such embraced advancement is cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin.

South Korea is the third leading trader in the Bitcoin market, behind the United States and Japan, and began to accept cryptocurrency more widely recently. A piece by the Technology Review notes the increase in cryptocurrency usage this year. The article notes that South Korea is also the largest exchange market for Ether (another form of cryptocurrency), "accounting for more than 33 percent of its market share", as well as the belief that South Korea has a total of around one million active, daily traders, or about one out of every 50 citizens. 

The popularity of cryptocurrency trading in South Korea, while it remains a delight and huge source of revenue for many people in South Korea, it has begun to worry the government. The government has begun to attempt to regulate the flow of cryptocurrency, following a ban put into place by China on ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings, a form of fundraising a fundraising mechanism in which new projects sell their underlying crypto tokens in exchange for bitcoin and ether) several weeks prior. Unlike China, South Korea has not yet put these regulations into place, and does not force companies to return ICO funds. South Korea's head of its Financial Supervisory Service, stated that "... the agency is monitoring cryptocurrency trading inside the country but has no immediate plan to directly supervise exchanges."

However, a change in that policy may be coming. Cointelegraph published a piece about a scam that rocked the South Korean cryptocurrency market this week. As per JoongAng, South Korea's biggest mainstream media outlet, reported about a "Bitcoin Platinum" that was created by a South Korean teenager as a scam. The Twitter handle @bitcoinplatinum provides limited information on how the "new" format bypasses the normal Bitcoin Blockchain, and has the trading community outraged. The reasoning behind the scam "... evidently was to try to decrease the price of Bitcoin by introducing a hard fork and profit off the short-term price trend of Bitcoin by shorting it."

In response to this, the South Korean government is, understandably, beginning to plan a response. An article in CryptoCoinsNews covers a new potential response by the government: a total ban on Bitcoin trading. A quote from Choi Jin-seok, a prosecutor at the South Korean Justice Ministry who specializes in cryptocurrency-related crimes, was published saying, "We do not rule out an option that bans trading of [all] cryptocurrencies. We acknowledge many problems stemming from the trade and are studying how to control them." The new ruling would be similar in severity to China's recent bans, essentially shutting down the cryptocurrency trade in South Korea. 

The Importance of Live Streaming for the LGBT Community in China

First and foremost, I think it is important to address Chinas views toward the LGBT community. The article, Chinese attitudes towards gay rights, discusses why China is unwilling to accept gay rights. Up until 2001, LGBT were considered a mental disorder. In Chinese society, they placed a strong importance on getting married and having a son to extend the family name. Many gays are still rejected by their families, school, and work place. Since China is not a democracy, China's Communist Party doesn't allow for self expression on the streets and attempts to end every conversation regarding gay concerns on the internet. China even just banned homosexuals from being on television. When Taiwan legalized gay marriage, China censored all discussion on Weibo. The article stated, “Due to the influence of Taiwan, we’re 14 years away from legalising it.” Chinese officials work very hard in censoring topics on the media that don't coincide with Chinese culture. However, live streaming is becoming increasing popular in China and has almost 300 million people participating since 2016. Thats almost the entire population of the United States. Live streaming is little more difficult to be censored since its broadcasting in real time. The Chinese government is concerned about the influence that celebrities, activists, and conversations regarding politics could have on their country. 

In the article "For LGBT community in China, live streaming is the future of advocacy and education" by Timmy Shen, he discusses how live streaming has become a crucial tool for the LGBT community in China. It has gained over 1 million views in 3 months. They talk about their stories in hopes to help parents and children who are struggling with coming out. Chinas LGBT non profit workers use WeChat mostly to communicate, however, they feel live streaming is much more personal and effective. In China, the harsh reality is that being gay it often labeled as either a crime or a mental illness. They want to use live streaming as a way to educate viewers about the truth of LGBT. Live streaming provides a place where people can reach out and not feel alone. Timmy Shen, a technology reporter based in Beijing, believes that living streaming will be the future of advocacy and education in China.

 

In the article written by  Timmy Shen, he stated "Despite the vibrant LGBT app scene in China, it hasn’t been a smooth sailing for PFALG since starting to do live streaming, especially when the authorities released regulations last year to ban portrayal of homosexual relationships on television dramas and web series (in Chinese). PFLAG’s accounts on some live streaming platforms have once been suspended due to the “sensitive” online discussions during live streaming." As a result, participates refrain from using specific words like homosexuality or LGBT when live streaming. The also use Yizhibo to live stream to larger audiences that aren't involved with LGBT. Yizhibo is partnered with Weibo so Weibo users can view Yizhibo's live broadcasts without downloading a different application. However, new regulations in China are requiring users to obtain a broadcasting license or else they would be cut off from live streaming.

 

New Star Wars Character gets Chinese audiences interested

(Actress Kelly Marie Tran as Rose)

Star Wars is a cultural landmark of film, known by billions of people across the world. However being so well known world wide does not always mean it is popular everywhere; China is one of these places. Despite Star Wars being big with the geek culture of China, general Chinese audiences find the cultural differences to be too much to get truly sucked into the films. Star Wars The Force Awakens preformed fairly well in China according to Box Office Mojo it made around $124 million, but did not have the staying power of other films due to Chinese audiences not connecting with the film.

(Actors Donnie Yen and Jain Wen in Rogue One)

Lucasfilm and Disney took note of this when crafting the new Star Wars film Rogue One; The film starred popular Chinese actors Donnie Yen and Jian Wen, the studio hoped they would help get more audiences to see the film. Sadly that end up not helping Rogue One made only $69 million according to Box Office Mojo.The actors sadly were not the main stars of the film which upset many Chinese film goers, Johnathan Papish of China movie insider was quoted saying "The small number of Donnie Yen or Jiang Wen fans who turned out to see their faces were completely confused or bored with the rest of the story". Just having popular Chinese actors in the film does not mean audiences will care when they are shoved aside for other characters.

 

(Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega in The Last Jedi)

Star Wars The Last Jedi is the newest installment of the Star Wars saga and according to Chinese film insider has passed the censorship test and given a January release date. Chinese audiences took note of one very important thing from the trailer actress Kelly Marie Tran as a new character, Director Ryan Johnson was quoted saying "her part is the biggest new role in the film". This means Kelly Marie Tran's character Rose will not be tossed to the side like Donnie Yen and Jian Wen instead she will be front and center as a new major character. Kelly Marie Tran is making a mark in many ways one of them being the first Asian-American on the cover of Vanity Fair.

(Kelly Marie Tran,John Boyega and Oscar Issac on the cover of Vanity Fair)

Chinese audiences are interested in the prospect of an Asian lead in the new Star Wars film, as of right now there is no true telling of how her character will be received by Chinese audiences all they know is actress Kelly Marie Tran was cast for her talent not being Asian said producer Kathleen Kennedy in multiple reports like Buzzfeed News. This is a good step for Star Wars' relationship with Chinese audiences having a strong female Asian lead may drive up ticket sales.

This is also a good step for Hollywood; if Chinese audiences end up loving he character of Rose perhaps Star Wars as well as other Hollywood blockbusters will mean something to China again. As of right now most movies cast Chinese actors in a vain effort to get Chinese audiences in the seats only to see the actors are under used, as Chinese casting director PoPing AuYeung told the Hollywood reporter,"I keep telling American producers, you need better, more meaningful roles." Chinese audiences know what Hollywood is trying to do and the bad ticket sales have shown this, however the way director Rian Johnson talked about the character of Rose as a major characters has Chinese audiences hoping this is the beginning of a new, better age of Chinese actors in Hollywood films.

 

 

Global Media News Webcast #11: Thursday, December 7, 2017

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• Same Sex Marriage Down Under: Congratulations to Social?
• Iranian Film Exports: Censorship Pressures?
• Star Wars with a Chinese Face: Casting Stars to Attract Chinese Fans?
• After Mugabe: Will The ZANU-PF Crocodile Snap at the Media in Zimbabwe?
• Impunity: Indian Journalists Still Threatened? Has the Government Taken Action?
• North Korean Radio: What Can You Hear?
• Is K-Culture Influencing China & North Korea?

Global Media News is a weekly webcast covering media news from around the world.  GMN is a production of  Media Studies students from the SUNY College @ Old Westbury.   We scour the web for news about media, journalism and technology.   

We will be back next week with another episode of Global Media News!

Listen to our next webcast streaming live on Thursday, December 14, 2017 @ 10 am EST.

Can't listen live? Our next webcast  will be posted by 2:00pm, Thursday, December 14, 2017.

Subscribe Now!

Kremlin-funded TV Network RT Registers Under U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act

    One year after the 2016 United States Presidential Election, Kremlin-funded news outlet RT has registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act following pressure from the U.S. government. A U.S. intelligence report from January 2017 reports that Sputnik and RT spread pro-Trump propaganda across their platforms during election time.

    The Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA, was implemented by the United States in 1938 in order to prevent the spread of Nazi propaganda. This act aims to allow American citizens to know whether the media they are being exposed to is being funded by a foreign source. An example of FARA being used for foreign agents can be seen through the registration of KBS America. KBS America was first registered with FARA in 2005 due to their ties to South Korea.

Above is KBS America's mission statement as shown on their official website.

    The addition of RT on the FARA raises questions over whether other countries around the globe will start requiring foreign news outlets to register with their own media. Some foreign media sources that are currently registered with FARA include Canada's CBC, Japan's NHK, and the China Daily.

    Russia’s media is highly controlled by their government as seen in the overwhelming amount of support for Putin in the upcoming March 2018 Russian election. In 2012, Russia began requiring any news outlets that were funded by foreign media to register as foreign agents. The Russian Foreign Agent Law was enacted following mass Putin protests throughout Russia.

    American news outlet Bloomberg covered the deputy speaker of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstory’s announcing of additional information on the Russian Foreign Agent Law. He states, “Media that fail to comply with demands to register as ‘foreign agents’ under the law will be banned from working in Russia.” Kremlin-funded media outlets aim to censor out any stories which could lower support for Putin in the upcoming 2018 Russian election.

    RT staff has been verbal about their resentment towards FARA, especially editor in chief Margarita Simonyan. Shown to the right is a screenshot of Simonyan’s tweet following RT’s FARA registration stating, “Forced to choose between a criminal case and registration, we chose the latter. And we congratulate American freedom of speech and all those who still believe in it." 

    Putin is not in favor of the registration as he does not believe RT poses a threat to freedom of speech. The News Tribune found that, “Putin has harshly criticized the U.S. demand regarding the RT channel as an attack on freedom of speech. He said Russia would retaliate.” Although Putin has passed legislation about Russian Foreign Agents, he continues to disapprove of the U.S. FARA.

South Korean Media's Sphere of Influence Grows

In recent years, South Korea has become a bigger player in the world of media content creation, and as a result its content is starting to spill out into other cultures, in both positive and negative ways. The influence of "hallyu" (a term to describe Korean culture waves created by Beijing journalists beginning in mid-1999) on other nations of the world has grown stronger with every year, and shows no sign of slowing down.

A positive influence of Korean media on other cultures is the recent increase in traffic between China and South Korea. A JingTravel piece by Crystal Tai takes a look at a recent phenomenon in Asia: the sudden influx of Chinese millennials travelling to South Korea. While most would assume they are traveling to South Korea for the beautiful cityscapes and locales, they would be surprised to know that the travel is dictated by the popularity of Korean media, be it fashion, music, or television. Tai writes, "Chinese travel to South Korea can in part be understood as aspirational travel to better understand and achieve the lifestyle marketed by South Korean firms." Meaning? Chinese millennials want to be South Korean by proxy, in the same way that Japan's anime has cultivated a similar sentiment in the United States. In China and even other areas of Asia, shops are going by the Korean standard on things like beauty products, clothes, and other elements of so-called "K-culture".

Another fascinating bit of information in the JingTravel piece describes a rather strange reaction to a hit Korean television program.  "During the airing of the hit K-drama “My Love From Another Star,” actress Jun Ji-hyun was spotted wearing Yves Saint Lauren’s Rouge Pur Couture lipstick #52. The item quickly sold out, not just in China, but worldwide in cities like Paris and New York. The same drama was also responsible for the clearance of Jimmy Choo’s “Abel” pumps from shelves in China, after an episode with Jun wearing them aired." This just shows the sheer level of influence South Korea has to share.

On the flip side, South Korean media doesn't have such a warm reception across the DMZ in North Korea. South Korea's DailyNK, a site devoted mostly to North Korean news, published a piece about the effect South Korean media is having with security personnel in North Korea. The top of many North Korean's lists for illegally imported media is still South Korean in origin, and reports of high-ranking government officials succumbing to its appeal have become widespread. It finds the bulk of its popularity, understandably, in the youth, with many viewing the content as a counterpart to Kim Jung Un's harsh governing policies. As a result, the regime has attempted to crack down harsher on what they view as illegal content, to limited success. Youths in Pyongyang have been reported to have been imitating South Korean culture in the streets, be it dance, accents, or even the way South Korean idols walk.

Even more incredible about South Korea's "infiltration" of the North is the fact that the viewing of illegal content isn't limited to the public; the security personnel charged with hunting down the illegal content have also been found to enjoy the "treasonous" material. A source in Pyongyang reported that " higher officials prefer to enjoy dramas in the privacy of their homes, hoping to avoid detection. Security agents take advantage of this and are known to target elites and those with ties to China, showing up unannounced at their homes and demanding to "see what South Korean media you've got." They sometimes view and enjoy the media before confiscating it." This is clearly not the way the regime hopes their personnel do their jobs, but it's a factor of their jobs.