Public Theology of Media in the midst of Korean Political Turmoil
Paul S. Chung, Director and Distinguished Full Professor, International Public Theology at Forum-Center in Berkeley.
Abstract
Social media outlets follow a technological paradigm that includes quality, reach, frequency, influence, usability, ubiquity, speed, and communication relevance. However, viral media infections exacerbate political polarization and reduce civil social discourse and reflective democracy to populist manipulation or postmodern moral relativism.
Biases in social media may be unavoidable in our digital or online lives. Digital media, particularly social media, has far-reaching and complex effects on society, education, political polling, commerce, and culture. In the information age, digital media has spurred disruptive innovation and created a dominant narrative during periods of political upheaval while, at the same time, decreasing critical voices, alternative realities, and emancipation that advocate for common good governance. The domain of digital existence unites the online and offline worlds. As a result, it presents a significant challenge to public religion and ethics in understanding discursive practice and power relations in the political environment.
In this essay, I will conduct a case study on the role of social media, YouTube, and competing discourses in South Korea. Specifically, I will contrast a biopolitical discourse of punishment (expressed in South Korean President Yoon’s public national speech for martial law decree) with the postmodern pluralism and moral relativism exhibited in social media. To further analyze mediatization and counter-argument in South Korean political discourse, I will present a sociological analysis of these two opposing discourses by synthesizing Habermas’s communicative rationality with Foucault’s genealogy of power and discourse.
Likewise, I will leverage Ulrich Beck to study political discourse in the digital space and risk society. A Beck-informed public ethics considers reflexive rationality, communicative freedom, and the public meaning of trustworthy discourse. Simultaneously, this ethic seeks to restrain the irrationality of biopolitical discourse, the viral infection of moral relativism, and Christian far-right ideology evidenced by Trump’s foreign policy and his fascist Leviathan.
Therefore, a well-articulated public theology of social media delineates the political aspect of church-state co-responsibility and underscores the translation of the gospel as reconciliation while striving for a prophetic vision of social justice and solidarity within an inclusive democracy.
Bibliography
Barth, Karl. “The Christian Community and the Civil Community (1946),” Karl Barth Theologian of Freedom, ed. Clifford Green. Minneapolis: Fortress. 1991. Pp. 265-96.
Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, trans. M. Ritter, London: Sage, 1992.
Bedford-Strohm, Heinrich. Liberation Theology for a Democratic Society: Essays in Public Theology, Zurich: LIT Verlag, 2008.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vantage Books, 1978.
Hjarvard, Stig. The Mediatization of Culture and Society. London: Routledge, 2013
May 6, 2023
How YouTube became a force in Korean politics https://kslnewsradio.com/2004440/how-youtube-became-a-force-in-korean-politics
The Straits Times
Dec. 10. 2024
South Korean broadcaster targeted by martial law feared for his life https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/south-korean-broadcaster-targeted-by-martial-law-feared-for-his-life
Reuters
December 14, 2024
South Korea's Yoon defiant after impeachment over martial law bid