The Media Spectacle of a Techno-City: COVID-19 and the South Korean Experience of the State of Emergency

Abstract

This essay provides a critical observation of the South Korean government's distinctive management of COVID-19 with particular reference to the state of emergency. It reveals that the success of South Korea's handling of the pandemic is largely attributed by a majority of Western media to the efficient deployment of both information and communication technologies and Confucian collectivism, two components that seem contradictory yet not incompatible under the rubric of techno-Orientalism. Analyzing the intensification of surveillance and the rapid datafication of society, this essay argues that the current state of emergency is not a breakdown of normality but a continuation of the state of crisis and disaster that rules a developing country like South Korea. In doing so, the essay seeks to facilitate a critical discussion about a new mode of democracy in the era of pandemic that increasingly grapples with tensions between individual freedom and public health.

Relationship between Snow and Ice Disasters in Phyllostachys Pubescens Forest and Environmental and Biological Characteristics in the Context of Big Data

“…The average disaster rate and disaster index of mixed forest stand are opposite to those of pure forest, and generally increase with the increase of standing bamboo degree. The reason needs further research and analysis [17]. The average fracture length of the affected bamboo and the average age of the affected bamboo, whether pure forest or mixed forest, increase with the increase of the standing bamboo degree.…”

Discourse Analysis of Western Media’s Coverage of East Asia’s Anti-Pandemic Efforts

“…During the COVID-19 pandemic, the dangerous ideology of Yellow Peril, affecting a variety of areas such as public health, technology, and global trade, resurfaced in the imagination of techno-Orientalists due to the escalating trade war between the United States and China and growing concerns in the West about China's cyber and technological advancements (Siu & Chun, 2020). From the perspective of techno-Orientalism, Asians were stereotyped during the pandemic as technologically advanced, but morally and ideologically primitive (Kang, 2020).…”

COVID-19 Exceptionalism: Explaining South Korean Responses

“…In addition, the 2015 outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) resulted in 38 deaths out of 186 confirmed cases, thereby induced the government to reorganize its epidemic control system. After MERS outbreak, governmental supports were given to hospitals to set up more negative pressure rooms and health authorities were given more power to access people's movement (Kang 2020). On top of that, the government had set the regulatory standard for the quality of face masks already in 2008 due to growing concerns over air pollution in mid-2000s (Kim and Choi 2021).…”

“…Mask wearing is obligatory in most public buildings in Korea". Such narratives that featured face covering as so exceptionally unproblematic in Korea were produced both domestically and internationally (Goh et al 2020;Kang et al 2020). However, we argue that despite commonly held views, mask-wearing in Korea cannot be attributed to a fixed and distinctively Korean 'culture' of obedience toward authority or courtesy to other citizens.…”