Claire Shinhea Lee | The University of Texas at Austin (original) (raw)
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Papers by Claire Shinhea Lee
Social Media+Society, 2019
Television and New Media, 2018
With the rapid development of new media technology, many people are "cutting the cords" and viewi... more With the rapid development of new media technology, many people are "cutting the cords" and viewing television through Internet-based video services via streaming or downloading. This study aims to better understand and contextualize this phenomenon through investigating Korean transient migrants' television-viewing practices. Through forty qualitative interviews and employing the framework of the domestication theory perspective, this article examines how these deterritorialized individuals who experience dislocation make home through cord-cutting practices. By making use of the Internet and delivery technologies/interfaces legally and illegally, Korean transient migrants go beyond territorial limitations and make home materially, feel home affectively, and connect home relationally in their diasporic space. Moreover, the study debunks some utopian ideas about online audiences and shows what remains fixed in terms of transnational postcable culture. I argue that the article provides many insights into investigating contemporary television audiences and suggest a novel approach to studying migrant media practices.
Journal of Communication Inquiry, 2018
Temporary visa-status migrants initially might be perceived as emancipated mobilities who are pri... more Temporary visa-status migrants initially might be perceived as emancipated mobilities who are privileged enough to enter and exit the United States without taking any major risks. This article examines the struggles involved in the experiences of the Korean temporary visa-status migrants living in the United States, and especially the role of media in their transnational everyday lives. Using a quasi-ethnographic approach by conducting qualitative interviews with 40 Korean visa-status migrants, this article argues that the homeland media, both television and Internet, sustain "ontological security" throughout the radical transitions, feeling of "existential outsideness," and transnational insecurities and precariousness. The study offers a helpful insight in both understanding the contemporary dispersed audiences and contextualizing different migrant positions within the easily lumped category of mobile elites or cosmopolitans.
A nation's memory is a reconstruction of the past. Accordingly, this study explores how South Kor... more A nation's memory is a reconstruction of the past. Accordingly, this study explores how South Korean television (TV) dramas Eyes of Dawn (1991) and Snowy Road (2015) helped shape the collective memory of Japanese colonial rule. Both dramas highlighted the experiences of comfort women, Korean women forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. This study analyzes the representations, technical factors, and newspaper discourse of the dramas to examine how they influenced collective memories of comfort women. By comparing and contrasting the dramas, this study reveals that while both generated public awareness and controversy, Eyes of Dawn and Snowy Road represented differently oriented colonial memories of comfort women: A patriotic-oriented memory and a humanism-focused memory, respectively. Specifically, in illuminating colonial rule, Eyes of Dawn showed a traditional good and evil dichotomy, while Snowy Road revealed a more complex and diverse context. Given the socio-political contexts of 1991 and 2015, this study suggests that Eyes of Dawn functioned to inform the public about the comfort women, whereas Snowy Road aimed to reflect upon the impact of comfort women in South Korean society. Thus, while acknowledging that collective memory is a construct that can change over time, we contend that the media's role (especially TV drama) is critical in this process. More generally, this study contributes to the study of memory, journalism, history, and popular communication.
This paper investigates the feelings of individuals who have been exposed to the continuous deman... more This paper investigates the feelings of individuals who have been exposed to the continuous demands for managing and beautifying the body. Through audience research on Korean reality shows about body/beauty, Get It Beauty and The Body Show, we attempt to understand how the discourses of body care work at the individual level. Our interviewees' feelings of being stressed, burdened, and annoyed about the discourses in the shows signify their (un)conscious acknowledgment of the false promises of the self-care rhetoric. However, the discourses of willpower and the embedded voyeuristic pleasure of watching the shows make it difficult to place such feelings in the public domain. We conclude that individuals' feelings lose their potential as resistant voices when "feeling bad" is discounted as personal, while a feeling of individual achievement is excessively celebrated.
Young children today are early adopters and frequent users of touchscreen devices. This study exp... more Young children today are early adopters and frequent users of touchscreen devices. This study explores how parents perceive the role of new media in their families, how and why they regulate children's media use, and how they feel about this process. The study conducts ethnographic interviews with 20 South Korean parents of two-to six-year-olds and observes 10 children in their media use and interaction with parents. We find that parents presumed that touchscreen media wielded a more negative than positive influence on their children. As a result, parents engaged in restrictive and technical mediation, though they often failed to effectively manage their children's media use due to practical challenges. The failure of parental mediation made the parents feel guilty. We suggest a greater need to attend to the contexts and emotions in which parental mediation of children's media use occurs.
This study investigates the ideological implications of Real Men, a Korean reality show that port... more This study investigates the ideological implications of Real Men, a Korean reality show that portrays the experiences of celebrities who join the military as new conscripts. We situate the popularity of Real Men in the context of the changing gender geography of Korea. Through an analysis of the official Real Men online bulletin board, we explore how the male audience's discourses regarding the authentic military experience and ideal soldiers are related to their desire to restore hegemonic masculinity. Our findings suggest that Real Men became a vehicle that was used to demand women's appreciation of the difficult work of men in the military. A desire to be symbolically remunerated for military service involved the positioning of women as primary caregivers who fulfill traditional female roles. By calling for the restoration of traditional gender roles, the male viewers attempted to recover the hegemonic masculinity that they perceived to be under threat from changing gender relations.
Love in Asia is the longest running Korean television program to portray multicultural families w... more Love in Asia is the longest running Korean television program to portray multicultural families with emphasis on the life experiences of marriage migrant women. Since its premiere, Love in Asia's consistent average rating of 13–14% has made it the most watched show in its time slot and most watched documentary program in Korea. We examined how various factors such as work routines, financial constraints, language barriers, and genre conventions affected the construction of popular images and narratives regarding marriage migrant women on television. We found that Love in Asia's construction of marriage migrant women as obedient brides who conform to Korean patriarchal norms reflects the creators' adaptation to work routines and production practices.
Asian Journal of Communication, 2012
This study investigates the ideological implications of Nambowon (‘the Committee for Men's Rights... more This study investigates the ideological implications of Nambowon (‘the Committee for Men's Rights’), one of the most popular sketches in a live comedy series entitled Gag Concert in Korea. The sketch humorously criticizes women who take advantage of men in various situations and always ends with a funny slogan demanding equal rights for men and the end of reverse gender discrimination. We treat Nambowon not as an idiosyncratic text but as part of Korean television programs that portray the rising social status of women as well as gender differences. Previous studies of gender and comedy have typically focused on textual meanings, and relatively little work exists to explain the audience's reception. Thus, we explore why audiences enjoy the show and whether and why there are differences in the reactions of male and female viewers to the portrayal of gender in Nambowon.
Social Media+Society, 2019
Television and New Media, 2018
With the rapid development of new media technology, many people are "cutting the cords" and viewi... more With the rapid development of new media technology, many people are "cutting the cords" and viewing television through Internet-based video services via streaming or downloading. This study aims to better understand and contextualize this phenomenon through investigating Korean transient migrants' television-viewing practices. Through forty qualitative interviews and employing the framework of the domestication theory perspective, this article examines how these deterritorialized individuals who experience dislocation make home through cord-cutting practices. By making use of the Internet and delivery technologies/interfaces legally and illegally, Korean transient migrants go beyond territorial limitations and make home materially, feel home affectively, and connect home relationally in their diasporic space. Moreover, the study debunks some utopian ideas about online audiences and shows what remains fixed in terms of transnational postcable culture. I argue that the article provides many insights into investigating contemporary television audiences and suggest a novel approach to studying migrant media practices.
Journal of Communication Inquiry, 2018
Temporary visa-status migrants initially might be perceived as emancipated mobilities who are pri... more Temporary visa-status migrants initially might be perceived as emancipated mobilities who are privileged enough to enter and exit the United States without taking any major risks. This article examines the struggles involved in the experiences of the Korean temporary visa-status migrants living in the United States, and especially the role of media in their transnational everyday lives. Using a quasi-ethnographic approach by conducting qualitative interviews with 40 Korean visa-status migrants, this article argues that the homeland media, both television and Internet, sustain "ontological security" throughout the radical transitions, feeling of "existential outsideness," and transnational insecurities and precariousness. The study offers a helpful insight in both understanding the contemporary dispersed audiences and contextualizing different migrant positions within the easily lumped category of mobile elites or cosmopolitans.
A nation's memory is a reconstruction of the past. Accordingly, this study explores how South Kor... more A nation's memory is a reconstruction of the past. Accordingly, this study explores how South Korean television (TV) dramas Eyes of Dawn (1991) and Snowy Road (2015) helped shape the collective memory of Japanese colonial rule. Both dramas highlighted the experiences of comfort women, Korean women forced to provide sex to Japanese soldiers. This study analyzes the representations, technical factors, and newspaper discourse of the dramas to examine how they influenced collective memories of comfort women. By comparing and contrasting the dramas, this study reveals that while both generated public awareness and controversy, Eyes of Dawn and Snowy Road represented differently oriented colonial memories of comfort women: A patriotic-oriented memory and a humanism-focused memory, respectively. Specifically, in illuminating colonial rule, Eyes of Dawn showed a traditional good and evil dichotomy, while Snowy Road revealed a more complex and diverse context. Given the socio-political contexts of 1991 and 2015, this study suggests that Eyes of Dawn functioned to inform the public about the comfort women, whereas Snowy Road aimed to reflect upon the impact of comfort women in South Korean society. Thus, while acknowledging that collective memory is a construct that can change over time, we contend that the media's role (especially TV drama) is critical in this process. More generally, this study contributes to the study of memory, journalism, history, and popular communication.
This paper investigates the feelings of individuals who have been exposed to the continuous deman... more This paper investigates the feelings of individuals who have been exposed to the continuous demands for managing and beautifying the body. Through audience research on Korean reality shows about body/beauty, Get It Beauty and The Body Show, we attempt to understand how the discourses of body care work at the individual level. Our interviewees' feelings of being stressed, burdened, and annoyed about the discourses in the shows signify their (un)conscious acknowledgment of the false promises of the self-care rhetoric. However, the discourses of willpower and the embedded voyeuristic pleasure of watching the shows make it difficult to place such feelings in the public domain. We conclude that individuals' feelings lose their potential as resistant voices when "feeling bad" is discounted as personal, while a feeling of individual achievement is excessively celebrated.
Young children today are early adopters and frequent users of touchscreen devices. This study exp... more Young children today are early adopters and frequent users of touchscreen devices. This study explores how parents perceive the role of new media in their families, how and why they regulate children's media use, and how they feel about this process. The study conducts ethnographic interviews with 20 South Korean parents of two-to six-year-olds and observes 10 children in their media use and interaction with parents. We find that parents presumed that touchscreen media wielded a more negative than positive influence on their children. As a result, parents engaged in restrictive and technical mediation, though they often failed to effectively manage their children's media use due to practical challenges. The failure of parental mediation made the parents feel guilty. We suggest a greater need to attend to the contexts and emotions in which parental mediation of children's media use occurs.
This study investigates the ideological implications of Real Men, a Korean reality show that port... more This study investigates the ideological implications of Real Men, a Korean reality show that portrays the experiences of celebrities who join the military as new conscripts. We situate the popularity of Real Men in the context of the changing gender geography of Korea. Through an analysis of the official Real Men online bulletin board, we explore how the male audience's discourses regarding the authentic military experience and ideal soldiers are related to their desire to restore hegemonic masculinity. Our findings suggest that Real Men became a vehicle that was used to demand women's appreciation of the difficult work of men in the military. A desire to be symbolically remunerated for military service involved the positioning of women as primary caregivers who fulfill traditional female roles. By calling for the restoration of traditional gender roles, the male viewers attempted to recover the hegemonic masculinity that they perceived to be under threat from changing gender relations.
Love in Asia is the longest running Korean television program to portray multicultural families w... more Love in Asia is the longest running Korean television program to portray multicultural families with emphasis on the life experiences of marriage migrant women. Since its premiere, Love in Asia's consistent average rating of 13–14% has made it the most watched show in its time slot and most watched documentary program in Korea. We examined how various factors such as work routines, financial constraints, language barriers, and genre conventions affected the construction of popular images and narratives regarding marriage migrant women on television. We found that Love in Asia's construction of marriage migrant women as obedient brides who conform to Korean patriarchal norms reflects the creators' adaptation to work routines and production practices.
Asian Journal of Communication, 2012
This study investigates the ideological implications of Nambowon (‘the Committee for Men's Rights... more This study investigates the ideological implications of Nambowon (‘the Committee for Men's Rights’), one of the most popular sketches in a live comedy series entitled Gag Concert in Korea. The sketch humorously criticizes women who take advantage of men in various situations and always ends with a funny slogan demanding equal rights for men and the end of reverse gender discrimination. We treat Nambowon not as an idiosyncratic text but as part of Korean television programs that portray the rising social status of women as well as gender differences. Previous studies of gender and comedy have typically focused on textual meanings, and relatively little work exists to explain the audience's reception. Thus, we explore why audiences enjoy the show and whether and why there are differences in the reactions of male and female viewers to the portrayal of gender in Nambowon.