Candlelight Movement, Democracy, and Communication in Korea

This book examines key features, problems, and implications of the 2016–2017 Candlelight Movement, a historical cornerstone for democracy and social movements in South Korea. The Candlelight Movement brought profound social changes with important lessons and questions for scholars, practitioners, activists, and the public. To examine the full complexity of the movement, this edited volume utilises wide-ranging methodological and theoretical approaches, which include case study approaches, ethnography, survey, feminist film criticism, critical discourse analysis, and rhetorical criticism. Chapters place ‘communication’ at the centre of their analyses, calling attention to the mediated and mediatised, the performative and other discursive practices of the 2016–2017 Candlelight Movement. In doing so, the book discusses not only the usual players and factors – nor the institutions that exert their influence through democratic politics and the public sphere – but also the counter-public embracing new and social media, collective singing, the body, and performance, as their choice of political media. As such, this volume offers important insights into how communication plays a critical role in forming, moving, and transforming new social movements. The Candlelight Movement, Democracy, and Communication in Korea will appeal to students and scholars of communication and media studies, political science, sociology, and Korean studies.

JongHwa Lee is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Mass Media at Angelo State University. Currently, he is working on the issues of Cold War rhetoric in Korea, historical justice and collective memory in Asia, and social justice activism and global citizenship. Chuyun Oh (Ph.D. in Performance Studies, UT Austin) is an assistant professor of Dance Theory at San Diego State University. As a Fulbright scholar, she focuses on performance ethnography, activism, and racial and gender identities in transnational popular dance in social media. Yong-Chan Kim is a professor at the Department of Communication at Yonsei University. He has researched on the areas of urban communication, new media technology, and public health/risk. His most recent books include The Communication Ecology of 21st Century Urban Communities and Media and Community.