TY - JOUR
AU - Ju,, Hyejung
AB - Abstract Technology has culturally localized meanings. In other words, technology stands out in people's modes of living and particular social sensibilities grounding the local history and social structure. In Korean society, technology is manifested as an image of humanity, happiness, and even romance, so that one's happiness and success in a lifetime are compatible with their levels of technological progress. I define this particular local tendency in Korea as “Confucian technological culture.” Specifically, I examine a phase of Korea's technological culture applying semiotic analysis to Korean mobile phone advertisements. According to Hans Jonas, every innovation in modern society is necessary to lead new discoveries that urge newer technologies in an endless cycle. In the meantime, emerging new technologies increase control of both environments and human beings. This is the “enchanted circle” of the people in the modern age. Every achievement in society becomes means and material forces for pursuing a new goal. The notion of progress in the modern era has followed this tendency (Mickunas, 1986). In academia, a series of discourses regarding modern technology and its social changes have been discussed. To render these discourses, we need to focus our attention on two opposing perspectives. On one hand, the old perspective is technological determinism. This theory claims that a major feature of technology is determined by its use and dissemination to the human mode of life. In this vein, technological progress is seen as the fundamental energy to change human society. On the other hand, a new way of looking at technology is social determinism. The perspective of social determinism argues that society takes control of the progress and advancement of new technologies. In society, technology and its selection and advancement appear to be one of the social choices concerning how to plan for the future and how to allocate resources (Green, 2001). According to Heidegger (1977), “‘Technology is a mode of revealing,’ a way of ‘bringing force’ of the truth.” (p. 12) In addition, Don Ihde remarks that technology mediates culture, and outlines a unique style of experienced reality, which he describes as “instrumental realism.” (Murphy et al., 1986, p. 191) When technology is perceived as being outside society, it has to be conceived of as neutral. However, technology within a society builds a particular relationship with that society's members, and this relationship cannot be neutral because it has been intentionally selected and distributed dependent to social demand. In this sense, social determinism is a more acceptable view in delineating the nature of technology in different societies than is technological determinism. Indeed, the local adoption of technological innovation is an interesting template in figuring out how one society accepts or develops new technologies differently from another society. In other words, technology or technological advancement coevolves with society and its culture, so that the phase of the technology's adoption is certainly affected by the society's condition as well. Therefore, the local adoption of technology grounding the social history and culture leads us to the following questions: How is technology perceived by the people in different societies? What social impacts of the localized technology are occurring? Where will technology lead a society to go? (Murphy et al., 1986) In this article, technology is defined not as machines that substitute a human being's physical function, but rather it is understood as a social apparatus that reflects a certain tendency to embrace technological advancement. Indeed, technology includes a form of commodity, a mode of life, and an image of science. According to Lucy (2001), even if we do not understand how a computer works, how a television screen can present us with an image of someone who is not actually there in the room with us, or how a telephone can allow us to speak to someone else who might be on the other side of the world, it does not matter for us. More specifically, technology in Korea is a national vision, a social desire, and a measure of one's life satisfaction. Certainly, Korea is one of the most sensitive nations in the world in innovation of the levels of technological improvement. Many recently updated technological products are rapidly consumed, and these technological products seem to carry more weight than other consumer products. But, penetrating technologies have never satisfied the people in Korea because they change quickly and constantly. For this study, my objective is to explore Korea's social enthusiasm for technological progress, and how Korea's technological drive as a social sensibility is manifested in particular technological product advertisements. As a whole, this article is a concern about the relationship between technology, society, and culture in addition to the domestication of technology in the locale (Green, 2001). I will be examining Korean mobile phone advertisements using a semiotic analysis in order to address Korea's sensitive fervor of technological progress. Technology and advertisement In general, the meaning of technology is not only as a branch of knowledge, but also as an application of knowledge for the sake of social progress. Technology is commonly understood as processes, inventions, or methods that produce something and it is often presented in the form of commodities. So, when we think of technology, it is easy to forget the substance of technology (Lucy, 2001). Advertisements are an effective tool of promotion in the capitalist market. The aim of an advertisement is to create a symbolic structure of meaning that endows value to the advertised object. The mediated sign in an advertisement calls for special attention and involvement in one's life experience. Capitalist virtues are manifested as both messages and images in an advertisement in light of creating one's necessity for the advertised mode of living. The human society in the advertisement is presented as a solid, simple, and futuristic world. In addition, technology often appears as a problem-solver in many different ways and more and more, it is materializing as we are yearning to have it. Through advertisement, the image of modern technological advancement is represented in progressive, positive, abundant, and prosperous human life. In this stage of capitalist age, individual identity deeply relies on the so-called “order of lack.” This concept means that we are obsessive in seeking a “lack” of conditions that compose one's ideal life, such as romance, success, and possessions. However, this perceived loss (or deficit) in our lives can never be completely fulfilled. Interestingly, this sense of loss has made society prone to a desire for recovering these lost feelings using supplements. Many advertisements show technological commodities being used to cope with this loss (Schirato & Webb, 2004). With regard to human desire, searching for satisfaction with complete happiness seems to be impossible. However, our desire continues to recreate this repetitious cycle. Even if some specific commodities could provide what they promise for our lives, the competitive capitalist order causes us to realize that all technological commodities eventually become obsolete (Schirato & Webb, 2004). Whenever a new technology emerges, the old technology goes out of fashion. So, technology stimulates people's fundamental anxieties and this continues to persuade us to search for a way to fill up our sense of loss. In M. Foucault's (1990) discussion about sexuality in the Victorian era, sexuality and sexual discourse in that period were systematically manipulated toward a certain bias, because the trend sexual discourse was taking was incompatible with the working ethics demanded from the capitalist society, at that time. Under a capitalist system, the focus of human energy had to be harnessed for producing material goods and improving labor power. Because of this rising capitalist work ethic, the social reception of sexual discourse was distorted toward repressed marginal discourse. Use of the mechanism of repressed sexual discourse by a capitalist society causes the discourse to become such a taboo that it cannot be discussed in public. Like the discourse of sexuality, technology also functions as a signpost of a certain social order. The discourse of technology functions as a control of one's body and mind. When a new technology emerges and distributes, somehow there is a fear of loss about our nostalgia which is a collective memory for the previous years of the society appears. But this fear of a new technological innovation of the Korean advertisement is quickly replaced by amiable images of humanism, such as family happiness and a transferred happiness from generation to generation. Paying attention to this tendency, the advertisement gives a convincing image of technology and its commodities as tools for enhancing the human relationship in a nostalgic or romantic sense. Thus, there is not a great deal of long-lasting fear for a technological innovation. Technology in Korea seems to link people's modes of life reflecting one's self-esteem, self-identification, and one's social and cultural capitals (Shilling, 2005). In fact, the pervasiveness of a computer-mediated communication environment, even in leisure, has reformulated one's horizon of space and time regarding the technological mode of living. Prosperous technological conditions are compelling people to adjust in the current technological culture (Mickunas, 1986). To emphasize a benefit of the new technology and its uses, advertising is a very effective tool that naturally convinces people to buy things. In fact, consumption is a tangible method of dealing with our urgent problems. Through a sound–image–story combination, advertising establishes a natural link between our desire, consumption, and technology. Technology and power Michel Foucault claims that power is historically constituted by a society, and power operates through discursive practices in a certain historical period. Foucault was attempting to understand that human beings are not subjectively independent, autonomous, and free apart from social discourses (or epistéme) (Loomba, 1998). According to Foucault, power is not anchored or given, but it is rather exercised in a complicated social network. Power is not something that one holds on to or allows to slip away. Power is everywhere not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere. […] Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategic situation in a particular society (Foucault, 1990, p. 93). According to Foucault, knowledge is not an innocent and an absolute truth, but rather it represents a dominant discursive power within the society. Knowledge carries a particular type of legitimacy of rationality, and it systematically engenders the specialized reasoning in multiple social domains (Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983). The point here is that technology is a subentity of this concept of knowledge. Similarly, technology is a social entity that could capture power in terms of Foucault's definition. Moreover, technology is understood as a source of power, a form of knowledge, and a sector of institution. Modern technology is manifested as an achievement of the human being but as a matter of fact, technology itself exists as a mode of human life as well as an ideology. So, it is certain that technology has been socially legitimized as a source of power and institution. Power tends to be localized and is resonant with social desire and sensibility. Foucault emphasizes that power is sophisticatedly embodied in a human body and mind utilizing diverse disciplinary training and surveillance. A goal of power is pertinent to increasing productivity and efficiency of the social subject. Akin to modern power, technology becomes localized for the human being's efficiency and productivity. The appearance of the existing power is significantly affected by the local person's way of life and culture. “The panopticon had the effect of focusing the practices of the culture: It provides a paradigmatic form for their visibility.”(Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983, p. 133) Foucault (1977) addressed panopticon as a structure that enables inmates to be seen visibly no matter where their positions are. Panopticon, as an example of the higher surveillance, reveals an integrated control system that combines knowledge, power, a control of one's body, and space. The ultimate goal of panopticon is that one should become a docile body that could be completely controllable and physically productive (Foucault, 1977; Dreyfus & Rabinow, 1983). Confucian technological culture in South Korea Framing images of technology in Korea shows it has adapted in a peculiar manner. As a whole, images of technology and its social dissemination in Korea reveal vigorous and virtuous meanings, and grounding in Korea's modern history and Eastern philosophy. Korea has accomplished rapid economic growth riding Asia's capitalist wave, but Korean society retains its Confucian morality system and respects this creed as the nation's philosophical origin. From this inheritance, Korea has to adjust its Confucian morality to the level of a modern industrial nation. More importantly, Korea's Confucian ethics still reside in its society as the basis of its social virtues and general living ethics that organize the minds and behavior of Koreans. According to Confucianism, a major component of Confucian ethics is self-cultivation. Self-cultivation is the profound value that each individual should continue to pursue education to better oneself throughout one's lifetime. And the question is how to seek ways for this subjective cultivation. The answer to this is finding out the concept of morality from a Confucian point of view. In Chinese, the word for morality, daode (), is composed of two characters: dao and de. The original meaning of dao is a road or a path. Dao () is enriched to mean a universal way or a cosmic order that is applicable and existent in every corner of the universe. De () has been translated as “virtue,” and described as traditional use of power to move others without exerting physical forces. Thus, de is often functionally equivalent to power, force, or potency that individuals have. More commonly, de is rendered as one's excellent trait or disposition in a direct ethical sense (Chong & Liu, 2006). In fact, morality in Confucianism includes two aspects, which are dao—the objective way and de—the subjective virtue. The most important relationship between dao and de is that dao will not become real without de. In practice, individuals who are fulfilling Confucian moral ethics should facilitate both dao (such a norm) and de (such a mindset) together, so thus either dao without de or de without dao is accepted as an insufficient completion. Confucius said, “It is man that can make the Way great, and it is not the Way that can make man great.” (p.222) Consequently, the subjective virtue de and objective dao become one and the same. Therefore, one will reach a perfect level of dao and then achieve happiness. In the meantime, virtue and happiness coincide: Virtue is happiness and happiness is virtue (Chong & Liu, 2006). The destiny of individuals is in accomplishing a perfect level of self-cultivation and seeking happiness. In Korea, happiness is regarded as an objective virtue that is out there, so one should make an effort to obtain it for both oneself and one's family. People believe that the individual's self-cultivation can never be stopped during their lifetime because refusing self-cultivation means a failure for life. For Koreans, self-cultivation is embodied in the virtues of diligence, vigilance, effort, and lifelong education. Specifically, education is a major task for self-cultivation and it is a heavy weight both for individuals and society. In this sense, education includes acquiring knowledge and keeping up with social—even global—changes, so that no one will be left behind. Technology in Korea resides as a major institutional field underlying this social tendency. Since the mid 1990s, Korean society has faced an economic decline. As a result, Korean society has been seriously afraid that its national progress might be terminated. There is no doubt that the Korean government and people have a serious social anxiety about recapturing their earlier national success. A goal of the Korean society since the beginning of the 21st century is to rejuvenate its economy and build a fine national image around the globe. This claim reveals Korea's social anxiety to create an industrial miracle. From this circumstance, technological advancement seems a feasible ambition. Korea has established some degree of national wealth through its economic development plan under an intensifying governmental drive. In the meantime, the complicated matter of Korea's social gap between the poor and the rich has visibly widened, and there is no proper plan to solve this matter because of the regional Asian economic crisis. In a broad sense, the technological future of Korea has a suitable frame congruent with the new national vision to empower people's motivation. The national slogan of “high-tech Korea” seems to presume a new world that no one has yet entered. The discourse of high-tech Korea enthusiastically disseminates into the entire society via institutions, business companies, and mass media. For example, the Korean government proclaimed a new-century national goal of a knowledge-based society. This goal promoted a radical information and communication policy, such as “Basic Plans on Information Promotion” (1996), “Cyber Korea 21” (1999), and “e-Korea Vision 2006” (2002) (Kim & Hamilton, 2006). According to the IT (Information Technology) survey in 2004 reported by the Korean Ministry of Information and Telecommunication, high-speed Internet was accessed in 76.7% of Korean households, and 54.5% of households had one or more PCs in their homes. Mobile phones were used by 59% of the population. Based on the IT survey, Korea is currently ranked within the top five countries equipped with a higher telecommunication infrastructure. In 2005, one-fifth of Koreans already subscribed to broadband Internet services in their homes, and this was the highest rate of penetration in the world. Relative to this, Hong Kong ranked 2nd in the ITU report, with 15% of its population broadband subscribers; Canada 3rd with 11%, and the United States 11th with 7% (Kim & Hamilton, 2006). This fact shows that technological advancement in Korea is not only a symbolic vision, but also the reality experienced in daily life. In particular, for Korean youth, technological commodities have become an essential element of differentiating themselves from others in many aspects, such as age, gender, education, and class status. In Korea, the speed of the technological shift throughout society is faster than in any other country and thus this shift continues to pick up speed. As a result, the people in Korea think that new technological innovation will never stop because this reflects their underlying ethical foundation of self-improvement, pride, and imaginary utopia. New electronics and telecommunication technology cause people to maintain their endless desire to obtain “stuff,” and this means they must maintain equality to have a positive future in their lives. The television commercial (Figure 1) of the LG company1 demonstrates a phase of technological culture in Korea. The advertisement conveys messages that contemporary technological innovation is directed toward a highly human-centered society. Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide LG group TV Image Ad. (broadcast in 2001). Figure 1 Open in new tabDownload slide LG group TV Image Ad. (broadcast in 2001). The story of LG advertisements began with an average office man as he went to a street market (a traditional style of street market) after work. He was looking for fresh raw fish for his family's dinner in a fish shop run by an old female owner who appeared to be of his mother's age. He was on the phone talking to his wife in order to pick up the fresh raw fish that she wanted. He showed many fish on the rack to his wife, communicating with his mobile phone. Then, he asked his wife, poking one fish, “Honey, how about this fish? Does it look fresh, uh?” At this moment, the fish shop owner told him, “Of course, it is really fresh! I already told you.” His wife at home could simultaneously see the fish through their PDP TV screen, and then she answered him, “Honey, the left one is better than that.” Meanwhile, the fish shop owner asked him, pointing to his mobile phone, “What is that?” He said, “We live in the digital world.” She had no idea what he was talking about; she asked him again, “What! Dae-ji-terl?” (It sounds similar to the pronunciation of the word “digital” in Korean, but its real meaning in Korean is: pig's fur). The old woman's response brought laughter. A close-up shot of the businessman's daughter's bright smile along with her mom, watching the situation transmitted by the PDP TV screen, was taken. The vivid street market scene that evening was zoomed from a long distance, and the catchphrase appeared: “The power that can change the world is Digital LG,” with a voiceover narration. This LG company advertisement is one of the well-made commercial advertisements in Korean electronics and telecommunication companies. The advertisement presents that the advancing technology promises to improve your life in convenience, romance, happiness, and wealth. As a result of technological innovation, his family and their happiness will be guaranteed through consuming technological products. Within the advertisement, there is a clear difference between the street market and his home, in high contrast because of the absence or presence of the advanced technology. The exhibited communication technology leads everyone's life, including the old fish shop owner, to the bright side of the future. For the fish shop owner, technology is still unfamiliar and somehow meaningless, but the businessman's daughter's bright smile emphasizes a promising future happiness. In addition, the happiness captured by technologies should transcend generation to generation as well as the current family. Finally, LG's digital technology in this advertisement perfectly connected totally separate spaces, a traditional street market and a high-tech modern house, to the metaphor of happiness, family, and generation. In Korea, the image of technological advancement is usually manifested as a bright and human-friendly image, and this humanistic sentiment for technology is broadly perceived. A new technology is attractively romanticized with a sense of the myth, using personification and naturalization. Accordingly, Korea's technological culture is influenced by sophisticated market segments in terms of the capitalist market order. The following report addresses the business feature of Korean technological culture: Microsoft has opened a research and development (R&D) center for mobile software and services in South Korea, hoping to benefit from the country's position as one of the most sophisticated markets for wireless and mobile technologies. “This is the first time we’ve set up an R&D center for our business outside of (Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington),” said Pieter Knook, senior vice president of Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices Division, during a telephone interview. Knook explained that the company wants to tap into South Korean expertise with mobile technologies, “Korea's a leading-edge market for data and application services.” (Lemon, 2005; IDG News Service) In the following section, I analyze how Korean advertisements pertinent to technological commodities are articulated in individual identity and technological culture, and how these humanistic images of technology using emotional appeals engender the social sensibility for the goal of a high-tech Korea. Semiotic analysis of Korean mobile phone advertisements Semiotics in Korea is a developed field of interdisciplinary studies and it began to analyze literature texts, such as poetry and novels. The famous Korean linguist, U.-R. Lee (2000) analyzed the popular poem, “Flag”, written in the Japanese colonial period by Chi-Hwan Yoo, exploring the poem's semiotic meanings. Lee found out that the main metaphor, a flag, is a symbol that existed in our spatial consciousness between sky and earth. So the symbol or flag represents a human being who is identified as the self within the changes of a social context. Lee's work contributed to understanding semiotics as an analysis of both text and structure grounding intertextuality between text and context. By the 1980s, cultural studies introduced in social science and their influence on Korean semiotics was extensive. View of text analysis had changed and the diverse cultural texts became a major object of semiotics. Many media and other cultural generes—e.g., films, TV dramas, arts, architectures, and advertisements—tend to be viewed as semiotic texts. Interestingly, advertisements appeared to contain important texts to analyze because they have a specific story that embraces the society and its consciousness. An advertisement can certainly be read as the presented society itself. As an example, Korean feminist scholars (e.g., Sun-Yul Choi, Jae-Kyung Lee, Hun-Soon Kim, Se-Kyung Yoo, Eun-Mee Lee, and Hae-Jeong Cho) explored a major tendency toward the female body being portrayed as a sexual object in advertisements. Specifically, beauty manufacturers and automobiles often used female bodies as sexual objects for the male consumer's gaze. C-S. Kim et al. (1996) attempted to examine Korean domestic automobile commercials in a semiotic analysis. Their approach of the automobile commercials is that advertisement reproduces the signified code in resonant with the social system. For example, automobiles in the analyzed advertisement often symbolized as a key of individual success, a symbol of wealth, and an identifier of pride. The authors claimed that those reproduced meanings are only applicable to Korean society because the advertisement can only be decoded through a particular social context. The analysis of the presented mobile phone advertisement is conducted in terms of two meaningful reasons. First, the mobile phone is considered as a high-tech artifact in Korea due to its valued concept as digital and wireless technology. Mobile phones are the most human-friendly gadgets and they are tightly attached to our lives. Mobile technologies enable us to expand the boundary of time and space, which seems to be conceived of as a huge obstacle in human communication. Thus, mobile technology symbolically means a ubiquitous communicative technology, and this enriches the image of a high-tech society. Second, Korean mobile phone markets are dominated by national brands. The global brands of the mobile phone, such as Nokia and Motorola, have not had a large market-share because of the three Korean brands, Samsung, LG, and SK. This competitive national brand domination in the Korean mobile phone market is an unprecedented global example. Therefore, mobile phone advertisements in Korea are a useful case to analyze the reflection of the image of technology and its social implications. Three different brands of mobile phone advertisements, released in the Korean daily newspapers in 2002 and 2004, were analyzed. These mobile phone brands, as mentioned earlier, have ranked a higher market share domestically. Samsung Anycall (Ad 3) has occupied the domestic market as the top brand because the mobile phone began to be produced by Korea's self-production system and LG CYON (Ad 1) is the second ranked brand, followed by Samsung Anycall. SK Sky (Ad 2) is the latest launched brand. These three companies–Samsung, LG, and SK–also stand out as examples of Korea's technological competence. Open in new tabDownload slide Ad 1. LG CYON.2 Open in new tabDownload slide Ad 1. LG CYON.2 Open in new tabDownload slide Ad 2. SK Sky.3 Open in new tabDownload slide Ad 2. SK Sky.3 Open in new tabDownload slide Ad 3. Samsung Anycall.4 Open in new tabDownload slide Ad 3. Samsung Anycall.4 Williamson (1978) claimed that advertisements create a structure of meaning as a sign system. The sign is composed of a signifier, which is a means to describe an object, and a signified, which is the perceived meaning of the object or image. Advertisements embody the code of meanings based on social and cultural contexts. These signified meanings in the advertisement tend to naturalize and be encoded as the customary usage in society. Using this view, I investigate selected advertisements, focusing on their visual images, messages, and their consequences of signification. Appellation and differentiation: Ad 1 As we see in the LG CYON Ad (see Ad 1), the LG mobile phone in actual size is juxtaposed with the magnified image of the phone. The cover of the LG CYON phone is aggrandized in the advertisement, and this phone cover's image resides as a background in the upper space of the advertisement. For more details of the advertisement, there is a lovely well-dressed female model on the gigantic image of the phone's cover. She wears a black layered dress and her hair style is matched perfectly with her dress. The model's appearance appears to be special, charming, and gorgeous. The model's fashion evokes a feeling of nobility and grace. This extraordinary fashion style has nothing to do with a mobile phone because a mobile phone is not perceived as a fashion item. In the advertisement, however, an artificial link between the model's fashion and the LG CYON emphasizes how great looking the LG CYON is. The dark blue-colored phone is successfully connected to the stylish female model. The phone's color and design are identified with the model's gorgeous appearance. Above the advertisement, there is a magnified pictorial image of the mobile phone separated from the real picture of the phone at the bottom. These two split spaces present a distinction between an imaginary and a real world. Within this separate space, the model and the LG mobile phone communicate in a reciprocal manner. That is, the feeling of elegance in the model's image transfers to the actual LG phone at the bottom. A simple caption above the space, “elegant look,” defines the LG phone as an elegant object. The female model portrays a graceful and elegant look, and the color and design of the mobile phone here are equivalent to her appearance. Two images, the phone and the woman, exchange in two ways and communicatively reconstruct a creative and identical meaning, regarding the definition of an elegant look. For people who see the advertisement, the message, “elegant look,” is completed by purchasing a LG CYON phone. The advertisement intentionally highlights that LG CYON is not just a mobile phone as a commodity, but rather a standard of your elegant taste. Lastly, the mobile phone LG CYON has a special value to be judged by your tasteful eyes. Another significant symbol in this advertisement is presented in the message, “Looks Good CYON” at the bottom. This message actually speaks to individuals who see this advertisement, and calls for the answer: “Does CYON look good?” The answer must be “yes” according to the advertiser's intention. In the meantime, the advertisement stimulates consumers' desires to think that it does look good and say “Yes.” Therefore, you buy a CYON phone and you become an elegant person such as the model in the advertisement. It is a typical process of appellation in terms of Williamson's explanation. Williamson said, “I use the term to mean an individual who feels that he or she is an agent, acting out freely the dictates of a coherent ego. Appellation is simply the ‘Hey, you!’ process of ideological apparatuses calling individuals subjects” (Williamson, 1978, p. 40). Advertisements contain a structure of meaning regarding a product, and the structure enables the product to posit as a social object. So the product has more exchange-value than use-value. Advertisements seek to transfer a statement about the object into a statement about types of consumers and human relationship (Dyer, 1982). In the LG CYON advertisement, the model's elegant image represents the value of the mobile phone itself. The exchanged relationship between the mobile phone and the woman heightens the consumer's attentions and yearnings to consume it in order to complete their own elegant style. The consumers recognize that LG CYON is not merely a mobile phone, but rather a symbol of graceful taste that implies their own fashion sense. The meaning of the product transforms to a symbolic quality of the sign which is dissociated from use-values of the product. As a consequence, appellation and differentiation are processed at the same time in the LG CYON advertisement. LG CYON represents itself as an elegant phone, but there is no natural relationship between identifying elegance and perceiving LG CYON phone as an elegant object. This is an arbitrary relationship, but the consumer likes to posit subjectively in the following manner: “Looks good CYON, (when you have it) now, you look good.” Magic and surrealism: Ad 2 The SK Sky phone advertisement (see Ad 2) presents the superiority of the phone's technical function that differs from other counterparts, such as LG CYON or Samsung Anycall. A series of different versions of Sky mobile phone advertisements are prone to follow the same pattern and purpose. In the Ad 2, the Sky mobile phone is enormously aggrandized such as a real movie screen and it operates or functions as an outdoor theater facilitated with a large high-definition screen. The people inside cars (There are actually no people in the advertisement, but we can imagine that they are there) are enjoying the movie through the monitor of the Sky phone on a snowy night. Above the advertisement, this romantic scenery is presented with a caption: “Is it a phone theater?” On the contrary, there is a main catchphrase at the bottom which stands out in all Sky mobile phone's advertisements: “It's different.” This catchphrase explicitly highlights the functional strength of the Sky mobile phone compared to its rival brands' phones. The setting of the advertisement is apart from an ordinary situation in terms of the mobile phone's use. Within this peculiar text, consumers are invited into an exotic imaginary world thanks to an amplifying function of the mobile phone. According to Williamson (1978), “surrealism in the advertisement is used to bracket products off from the real.” (p.132) The phone is bracketed by a specific sensual appeal which is encoded in the advertisement. In the meantime, consumers stimulate themselves through involvement as a spectator given a signified imaginary text. This process is operated by the people's strange and supernatural feelings that they have never experienced in their ordinary lives. To build this dream world in the advertisement, a snowy night provides the mood for both romance and surrealism. As a whole, the white and creamy tone of color coming from snow recreates the Sky phone itself as a soft and warm commodity that has a mysterious fantasy. By means of a surreal image, the Sky phone advertisement establishes a fantastic narrative regarding its superior visual function. The caption, “Phone Theater,” is explicitly remarked on because the Sky phone can provide a high-definition visual transmission like a theater screen. The message, “It's different,” reiterates that only Sky phone is able to provide this higher quality of service. It turns out that the Sky phone makes you different from other phone users in aspects of level of satisfaction and pleasure. Basically, the advertisement is structured by a fantastic surreal story, but this strange imaginative landscape is well grasped by the romantic scenery and the catchphrase. Finally, the advertisement calls for consumers' support in this manner: “Yes, the Sky phone is different.” When one senses surrealism from the advertisement, it assumes a system of transformation where such disproportionate results appear precisely because of this miraculous quality. This result is hard to explain but we do not need to explain the detail of its technique (Williamson, 1978). There emerges a feeling of exoticism, but at the same time, this feeling would be attached in a feeling of romanticism which is not likely to be experienced in the real world. Baudrillard (1998) points out the notion of hyper-reality in terms of signs and its images in postmodern art. As he defined, simulacra enable us to feel overwhelmed by the imitated image. Simulacra are created by the hybrid and pastiche techniques and have aura as well as original images and signs. Simulacra can be a substitute for the real image, but it becomes more authentic than the real object. According to him, the border between the original and the imitated object is very ambiguous, and its relationship is often subverted in a value between authenticity and imitation. In fact, simulacra lead signs or images to implode in the real text through mimicking or cloning. With regard to the setting of ad 2, the Sky phone is not real, but it enables us to experience a realistic magical atmosphere. The image of the phone theater appeals to the consumer. The relationship between a surreal image and a real object is overridden within the consumer's perception. In fact, the consumer finds it hard to reject the romantic enchantment from the advertised message because everyone wants to achieve uniqueness from others. Referent, brand, and panopticon: Ad 3 A referent means the actual thing, to which a word or concept points. A referent is external to the sign, whereas a signified is part of the sign. However, the external reality is referred to as a collection of signs and in the advertisement, the referent is admitted as an element of the mythic structure or, in other words, another set of signs (Williamson, 1978). Commonly, the referent in the advertisement is encoded by popular stars or well-known places, such as Madonna as a sexual symbol, or the Statue of Liberty in New York as a symbol of freedom. These popular referents are familiar and allow people to make sense of the embedded meanings given in a narrative or myth. Looking at the Samsung Anycall advertisement (see Ad 3), it used the brand itself as a referent. This is possible because “Samsung” and its mobile brand “Anycall” are perceived as a legend of Korean technology and its development. Indeed, the image of Samsung and Anycall has symbolic meanings of success, pride, and trust. The brand power of Samsung originated from Samsung's economic position in the globe as the representative Korean global corporation. In addition, the brand Anycall understands a superior mobile phone that first came out in the Korean mobile phone market by means of Korea's domestic technology and engineers. The emergence of the Anycall phone is one of the most remarkable technological achievements in Korea. Thanks to this monumental work, the Anycall mobile phone has dominated the domestic market competing with other global brands, such as Motorola and Nokia. The Ad 3 illustrates a high-school girl in uniform walking down a dark road in the countryside after school. Along the dark road, the Anycall mobile phone illuminates lights to guide her. The surrounding atmosphere around her seems to be calm, dark, and lonely. Above the advertisement, there is the main catchphrase, that is, “Anywhere in Korea, if Anycall works, you are safe.” Along with this, there is another message, “The Anycall SOS service is always with you,” at the bottom. The various exhibited styles of the Anycall phone at the bottom can provide SOS service as well. When this advertisement was released, the Anycall mobile phone began a new service that is referred to as “SOS.” Anycall users can report in whenever and wherever they face an emergency situation, dialing a specific number that only Anycall phones serve. In the ad, the Anycall phone is equivalent to a guardian for its users. The brand image of Anycall brings about this guardian concept in order to protect each user based on people's perceived trust. Since the Anycall phone came out, Korean consumers are well aware of the quality of the Anycall mobile phone and the company, Samsung. Samsung and the brand Anycall represent Korean technology's superiority in the global market. Trust in the Anycall phone is a major cause of Korea's industrial history. The purpose of this advertisement is to remind the public that Samsung and Anycall phones are a reflection of Korea's pride and competence. The additional message in the top left, “Our national brand, Samsung,” explicitly addresses this social belief. Basically, this advertisement uses brand power and a mythical image of the established commodity, which is accepted socially. The consumer's loyalty or fidelity toward a brand is the most important motive for grasping consumer power. On the other hand, this mobile surveillance technology of Samsung is a reminder of a concept of panopticon according to Michel Foucault. Panopticon is a circle-shaped prison structure where each person is isolated from one another in a small cell and therefore they can be observed all the time without a supervisor in a central tower at the center of the building. The building would be lit around the perimeter, so that each person could be clearly seen either by a supervisor or other inmates. Jeremy Bentham originally brought this concept, and he envisioned the same basic concept for factories, schools, hospitals, and madhouses (Fillingham, 1993). Certainly, panopticon is considered as an effective modern surveillance system. Every person can voluntarily watch one another, but they do not really know who the real observer is in the central tower. Similarly, Samsung's mobile technology could monitor every Anycall mobile user in Korea. The slogan of the SOS service spells out its ubiquity and a higher security system. The image of Samsung and Anycall both as a national and a global brand embraces this intensifying mobile technology regardless of worries about one's privacy. The Anycall mobile phone turns out a strongly trusted object. The guardian concept of the Anycall advertisement implies how technological power can sophisticatedly reach out into a private sector in our lives in a controlling manner. Indeed, technology reveals a creative power over human life through its self-enhancement from time to time. In summary, we can see totemism as Williamson claimed in the Anycall phone advertisement. The advertisement works on the basis of “alreadyness.” It delineates that consumers do not simply buy the product in order to become a part of the group it represents. Consumers must feel that you already, naturally, belong to that group and therefore you will buy it (Williamson, 1978). Totemism becomes a part of ideology given a natural sense of group identity or belongingness in consuming a particular commodity. In that sense, Korean consumers easily make a connection between the brand and the product, that is: a leading Korean technology = Samsung, Anycall = a leading mobile phone, trust/high quality = guardian. Technology as a myth in Korean mobile phone advertisement Although the advertisement proposes a newly creative world, it also has to avoid extreme alienation from actual reality, because its main purpose is to capture one's gaze and make sense of it. According to Barthes (1972), there are two signification processes of the sign system. The first step is denotation and the second step is connotation. In the denotative process, a signifier and a signified are encoded and they become a primary sign for the next connotation process. This connotative sign is contextualized in both social and cultural frames beyond a denotative meaning. In Barthes' Mythologies, he defined it as a myth, which is a systematically constituted social narrative. So the myth can be understood only in the customized local context. As a whole, the process of signification (Figure 2) mobile phone advertisement analysis is basically focused on a symbolic differentiation of one brand from another brand. The LG CYON discerns itself from the other two brands by highlighting its stylish design, but the SK Sky phone emphasizes an aspect of high-tech visual function that can be more entertaining. The Anycall advertisement defines itself as a private guardian, and it borrows a mythical image and a belief dependent on the image of the national company of Samsung. Figure 2 Open in new tabDownload slide Signification of three mobile phone ads. Figure 2 Open in new tabDownload slide Signification of three mobile phone ads. More importantly, a common theme in those advertisements is that technology is deeply ingrained in our private lives and in self-identification in Korean society. The image of technology is necessary to link people to a happier life, so that there is no worry about the dark side of technology. Instead, technology is manifested as the almighty power which makes our lives better from a human-centered perspective. Technology and technological commodities are perceived as friend, helper, supporter, and guardian in Korea. Conclusion According to Baudrillard (1998), the nature of consumption is considered as a mode of discourse or language. Like language, consumption is a way of human communication. Once we think of consumption as a language, we are free to deploy tools derived from structural linguistics including sign, signifier, signified, and code. Advertisement produces a specific code of meaning about a particular commodity. It tends to anchor it to a specific meaningful structure within the society. Thus, the conveyed meaning through the advertisement enunciates many different ways of society, such as appellation, totemism, and magic. In the same vein, one is constantly seduced by advertisements and thus, one's desire is evoked to fulfill a perceived loss. Technologies and advertisements have very similar natures and each commonality nurtures the other. Certainly, technologies and advertisements coexist as the most powerful apparatuses for sustaining the modern capitalist order. J. Lacan (1977) points out that human beings lose unity, are isolated from the mother's body when born, and they start entering into the cultural world. The idea of self is created from this isolation by an imaginary identification based on one's mirror image. Indeed, self-consciousness exists in the realm of imagination. The concept, self, makes it possible to define as one's self-reflection of the image of others. This step in a human being's development is referred to as dissociation between “self” and “other.” This gap has not been easy to shrink; so this structural position of the human being causes a never-ending lack, which Lacan describes as “desire” (Klages, 2001). Similarly, advertisements and technology continually stimulate people's permanent desire to expand their material power. In Korea, technology is an institutional power which makes consensus a social sensibility pushed by a national slogan of the progress (or the future). The image of technology has appeared deeply in advertisements, being articulated in human minds and emotions in intimate communication. A sensibility is explained as a particular form of engagement or a mode of operation. It has impacts on the society and reveals how specific texts and practices in a certain culture can reformulate those into particular structural meanings (Grossberg, 1992). Relying on this definition of sensibility, technology or the image of technology is influenced by the retained Confucianism in the Korean culture, which plays a critical role in nurturing social sensibility. The virtue of Confucianism is adhering to a majority discourse for social harmony. Harmony is a crucial moral value in Korea to maintain one's individuality and interdependence. In fact, the nature of technology in Korea is not merely considered as a mechanical development to enhance one's physical power, but rather an accomplishment of one's life. The image of technology in Korea is manifested as future, hope, success, freedom, and self-improvement. This emotional reception of technology is localized as a tendency for becoming technologically advanced, which applies to the entire population in the society as a social goal. I argue that this tendency can be referred to as a Confucian technological culture. Certainly, technological culture is a way of seeing Korean society, and an obsession of technological advancement in Korea has to be discussed. Today technological culture is necessary in one's private life, and it constantly extends one's desire of what they want to hold close and not lose. I hope that this study will contribute to giving a view of revealing a particular aspect of technology in Korea. Notes 1 " LG is a second-ranked global corporation in Korea after the top company, Samsung. LG group has a couple of subsidiary companies in the technological division, such as LG electronics, LG telecommunications, and LG semiconductors of memory. LG is one of the most famous representative global companies in Korea. 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TI - Technology and Social Sensibility in South Korea: A Case Study of Mobile Phone Advertising
JF - Communication Culture and Critique
DO - 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2009.01035.x
DA - 2009-06-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/technology-and-social-sensibility-in-south-korea-a-case-study-of-zM3LA22pJP
SP - 201
VL - 2
IS - 2
DP - DeepDyve
ER -