SEOUL, KOREA - The cascading effects of Korean culture’s global expansion on the Korean economy and national integrity have considerably escalated. In the past, it was often said that culture would not help people earn their bread. However, these days, the culture industry does help people make a living and creates jobs because the culture industry is capable of producing high value addedness. Korean rapper PSY’s global hit song "Gangnam Style" and Korean film “Pieta”s winning of the Golden Bear (the highest prize awarded for the best film) at the Berlin International Film Festival have not only brought a great amount of wealth to the Korean economy but also enhanced Korea’s international standing as a cultural powerhouse.
At a time when the world is paying renewed attention to the value of Korean culture, a workshop aimed for the promotion of the content industry and budget increases for the culture industry was held at the National Information Society Agency (NIA) in Seoul on November 29. This workshop came amid growing calls for raising the government budget for Korea’s culture industry by as much as 2%.
Delivering a welcome speech, Dr. Hyoung joong Kim, President of the Smart Media Association (professor at the Graduate School of Information Security, Korea University) mentioned, “Since the Korean culture industry is making a significant contribution to hoisting Korea’s international status and national dignity, the fact that issues like culture, creativity and contents have been bandied around as Korea’s key policy topics does not come as a surprise.”
Professor Kim pointed out, “While arts and culture libraries around the world have been running independent sections dedicated to Chinese and Japanese cultures, it is hard to find a Korean culture section in such libraries. This is somewhat humiliating. Despite Korean players’ great showing at the Olympics and the Korean wave, Korea’s rich, five-thousand-year-old history and culture has yet to be fully recognized overseas mainly due to a lack of the private sector’s efforts.” He continued, “Since the jobs to improve the quality of life, assimilate minority groups, export Korean culture, develop creativity and nurture the content industry must be done, increasing government budgets for the culture industry to the 2% range is very important.”
Dr. Hyun-jae Cho (Deputy Minister Planning & Coordination Office of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) said at the workshop, “This workshop has come in a timely, meaningful manner when Korean rapper PSY’s global sensation “Gangnam Style” and Director Kim Ki-duk’s award-winning film “Pieta” have become global contents. Promoting the spread of Korean culture will markedly polish up Korea’s national brand.” “The Kpop-driven Korean wave is sweeping through the world, creating a golden opportunity for replacing the disgraceful “Korea discount” with “Korea premium.” According to data released last year by Korea Customs Service, exports of Korean consumer goods to nations where the Korean wave is blowing hard were much larger than those to non-Korean wave nations,” he continued.
He went on to say, “The socioeconomic value created by the Korean content industry is huge. In contrast to the manufacturing industry that has lost momentum in job creation owing to automation, the content industry has great potential to create jobs-- especially for the youth. Though the government budget (nearly KRW 4 trillion for 2013, 1.16 percent of the total government spending) allotted to the culture industry pales in comparison to the enormous socioeconomic value generated by this industry, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) will continuously prop up the culture industry’s endeavors to touch up Korea’s international profile.
The workshop proceeded with presentations made by industry insiders: Byung-ki Hwang (Chairman of the Board of Namjune Paik Cultural Foundation) made a presentation on the importance of Korean culture & arts and the need for making changes in culture-related policy; Se-won Kim (associate professor at Sun Moon Industry University Cooperation Foundation) talked about the value of the Korean wave, potential for industrialization and implementation strategies; and Dong-won Han (Chairman of 3D sweetening Forum) touched upon the current situation of the culture and content industries and R&D for culture technology. This workshop was organized by Korea Smart Media Association (Kosma), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Korea Media Convergence Association (KOMC) and Korea Digital Convergence Association (KODICA) ;and was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, National IT Industry Promotion Agency (Nipa), Korea IT Times, etc..
