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Flower of Capitalism: South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads (Hawai‘i
Studies on Korea)
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An ethnography of advertising in postmillennial South Korea, Flower of Capitalism:
South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads details contests over advertising freedoms
and obligations among divergent vested interests while positing far-reaching
questions about the social contract that governs advertising in late-capitalist
societies. The term &20flower of capitalism&21 is a clich&#233d metaphor for
advertising in South Korea, bringing resolutely positive connotations, which downplay
the commercial purposes of advertising and give prominence to its potential for public
service. Historically, South Korean advertising was tasked to promote virtue with its
messages, while allocation of advertising expenditures among the mass media was
monitored and regulated to curb advertisers&17 influence in the name of public
interest. Though this ideal was often sacrificed to situational considerations, South
Korean advertising had been remarkably accountable to public scrutiny and popular
demands. This beneficent role of advertising, however, came under attack as a
neoliberal hegemony consolidated in South Korea in the twenty-first century. Flower
of Capitalism examines the clash of advertising's old obligations and new freedoms,
as it was navigated by advertising practitioners, censors, audiences, and activists. It
weaves together a rich multi-sited ethnography&12at an advertising agency and at an
advertising censorship board&12with an in-depth exploration of advertising-related
controversies&12from provocative advertising campaigns to advertising boycotts.
Advertising emerges as a contested social institution whose connections to business,
mass media, and government are continuously tested and revised. Olga Fedorenko
challenges the mainstream notions of advertising, which universalize the ways it
developed in Transatlantic countries, and offers a glimpse of what advertising could
look like if its public effects were taken as seriously as its marketing goals. A critical
and innovative intervention into the studies of advertising, Flower of Capitalism
breaks new ground in current debates on the intersection of media, culture, and
politics.