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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

SOUTH KOREA’S OTHER PROBLEM
SEP 8, 2009 - 9:23AM PDT
Posted by Nicholas J. Cull
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This summer much global attention has focused on South Korea's biggest problem: its northern neighbor with his nuclear missiles and penchant for detaining American journalists. But South Korea has another problem: its international reputation. South Korea now has an economy approaching one of the ten largest in the world but falls short of the top thirty on the indices of brand reputation. Korea's image has lagged behind the reality of its economic and political transformation over the last twenty years. The new government of former Hyundai executive, President Lee Myung Bak has responded by creating the Presidential Council on Nation Branding, an impressive brain trust of officials, scholars and business stars with the power to coordinate and reinforce Korea's existing mechanisms of public diplomacy. At a recent conference on the Korean brand, the Council's Chairman - former University President Dr. Euh Yoon-Dae - declared his intent to raise Korea's brand from 35th to 15th in the world. While the Council's approach includes the rather futile task of finding a new national slogan (to replace the impactful investment oriented brand 'Dynamic, Korea' and its oddly campy tourist oriented counterpart, 'Korea, Sparkling') most of its plans seemed right on the money. It is especially encouraging to learn of the emphasis which the council plans to place on improving the experience of foreigners resident in Korea. The isolation experienced by many foreign workers in a very homogenous country has long been one of the deficiencies of the Korean brand. Another priority for the council is investment in Korea's international voices: the privately operated English language newspapers, the Korea Times and Korea Herald, whose online versions are the preeminent source for foreigners seeking to learn more about the country, and South Korea's foreign language satellite TV channel: Arirang TV. Arirang has particular potential. The channel is the creation of the non-governmental Korean International Broadcasting Foundation. Its English language programming has been accessible on foreign satellites since 1999, and within the last few months the channel has reached Direct TV line-ups in New York City and Los Angeles. Its output is sufficiently impressive to have been used as a model by nascent Japanese international broadcasters, but Arirang still has a long way to go. International audiences expect a level of objectivity from international broadcasters, not least in the portrayal of the affairs of the country of origin. The absence of such a culture of objectivity from all the external services emanating from East Asia accounts for their limited reach. Arirang is ten times better than China's CCTV 9 but a sizeable advantage will accrue to the East Asian nation whose broadcasts are a thousand times better. The great prize is to create the 'Asian Al Jazeera' or 'Asian CNN'. While the Presidential Council's cash will doubtless help Arirang, a better injection might be one of editorial spirit (or license) to deliver a vision of Korea and the world which the world will find compelling. Maybe the most encouraging element of the Council's plan is a…... FULL TEXT
 
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