Globalization and National Identity: Korean Perspectives

초록

The Korean government emphasizes that the cultural industry is the main arena in which countries will compete against each other in the 21st century. In complience with this, Korean has allocated, for the first time since the birth of the republic, over one percent of its total government budget to the cultural sectors. This paper warns that a biased enphasis on the "commercial" characteristcs of culture could invite trade disputes from the advanced countries, especually from the USA. According to the US perspectives, cultural products, which are inevitable forms of cultural contents, are the same kind of freely tradable goods such as cars, therefore they should comply with the free trade spirits under the GATT or WHO. This paper concludes that the Canadian policies on cultural industry can be a benchmark for Korea to formulate its cultural policies in the challenges of globalisation, market opening, and development of communicational technologies.