社會發展과 言論人 : 콤뮤니케이션的 考察 = Social Development and Journalists

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Historically a human being is born to struggle to survive biologically and communicationally. Long before Darwin conceptualized this idea, human beings tried their best to sustain themselves. To survive, they have cooperated with one another and compromised themselves to adapt to the conditions of the environment. During the evolutionary processes, communication has played a vital role in exploiting survival knowledge, disseminating exploited knowledge to succeeding generations and developing new knowledge based on previous knowledge and enriching it with revolutionary scientific discoveries. All human civilizations have depended on communication between people and within one's self.
Thus communication does not refer only to the verbal intentional transmission of messages, but includes all those processes by which people take things into account and people interact with one another. Communication, as defined here, is the process by which human beings take something into account to some end. Therefore, communication is like metabolism since human beings are biologically compelled to communicate in order to survive.
Human beings cultivated themselves and their environment to feed and shelter themselves, and pursued a better, more comfortable, more enjoyable, and easier life. This has become a pattern of human living. For a better and easier life, human beings have created numerous techniques, slowly developing the present civilization. The mass communication system for an efficient society is one which is mainly devoted to creating useful information sources for its members.
Journalists create such information sources from their perceptions of the events and decide which information sources should be channelized through mass communication systems. Here, we find the significance of the journalists' role in modern society. In a changing society their decisions often influence the perceptions of people. diffusion of innovation, and the rate of change. This phenomenon is clearer in developing countries which have to face dramatic changes from traditional society. They are providing information sources for people who take something into account from it. This study is based on the concept that journalists especially those in developing countries, are an important part of a relatively small but articulate intellectual stratum, and their influence potential in the processes of social development is much greater than are other professions such as medicine, law, education, etc. Despite the potentially important role journalists can perform, their effectiveness is often undermined by a deep sense of futility with which they regard their own professional role. At this point the important questions are whether they really realize their significant role or not. If so, how they perceive their professional role and what their attitudes are toward social development.
This paper is a survey report of an examination of the attitudes of Korean journalists regarding the effectiveness of their professional roles and social development in the Republic of Korea. The data reported here come from a study of the attitudes of journalists toward social development in Korea. Interviews were conducted in the summer of 1971. Students in the department of journalism of the Hanyang University in Seoul personally interviewed a random sample of 201 journalists drawn from 30 daily newspapers and 51 television and radio stations in Korea. The collected data were primarily of five types: 1) the journalists' social and career background characteristics, 2) their professional commitment, 3) their perception of the role of the mass media in the processes of social development, 4) their perception of the degree of effectiveness of the journalistic profession, and finally 5) the demographic data for a better analysis. The data were processed using the SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) computer program at the University of Iowa, U.S.A.
These data were analysed in four parts: first the conceptual frame, second cynicism, third professional role perception, and lastly attitudes toward the social development in Korea. In cynicism, we found that Korean journalists who responded in this survey have considerable cynicism toward their professional effectiveness which is largely the result of frustration in their profession. Such cynicism was analysed along three dimensions: 1) knowledges of political reality, 2) professional commitment as journalists, and 3) experiences in the professional career. There was a tendency for those who have more experience in journalism, less commitment to their profession, and more knowledges about the political situation to have more cynical attitudes toward the effectiveness of their profession. In other words, non-political journalists who have less experience in journalism but feel more commitment to their profession showed less cynicism. In short, it seemed to the author that there was a tendency toward "uncritical negativism" among Korean journalists.
In role perception, we found that Korean journalists fell into two groups in their attitudes toward the mass media's role in Korea : 1) political freedom seeking role and 2) social welfare seeking role. The analysis revealed that newspaper journalists had positive attitudes toward the political role of the mass media while broadcasting journalists had positive attitudes toward the social role of the mass media. Journalists in Seoul showed relatively low positive attitudes toward the social role of the mass media while the local hournalists showed higher positive attitudes toward the social role of the mass media.
In the attitude toward the social development, we found that Korean journalists believed that there were strong relationships between the mars media and social development. However, their attitudes were clustered in three types: 1) positive cooperation, 2) cooperation, and 3) check and cooperation for social development. But they agreed in general that mass media have great influence potential in the processes of social change. In priorities of social development in Korea, they strongly pointed out that the clean-up of injustice and corruption is the most important social development, and it must be executed first. They emphasized that the spiritual support of the people is much more important than tole physical construction of highways or apartments.
In summary, we have found that Korean journalists have cynical attitudes toward the effectiveness of their role in social development even though they believe that the role of mass media in the developing society is vital. This is an unfortunate phenomena that should be adjusted for better and more efficient social development in Korea.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. 머리말
• 2. 콤뮤니케이션과 社會發展
• 3. 言論機關의 社會的位置
• 4. 社會發展과 言論人의 役割
• 5. 調査方法
• 6. 分析內容
• 第1部 言論人과 自嘲意識
• 自嘲意識
• 自嘲意識과 政治內幕에 대한 知識
• 自嘲意識과 使命感
• 自喇意識과 抵抗意識
• 맺음
• 第2部 言論人과 言論使命觀
• 新聞言論人과 放送言論人
• 政治的使命과 社會的使命
• 職務性格과 言論使命觀
• 맺음
• 第3部 言論人이 보는 社會發展
• 社會發展과 韓國매스·콤의 關係
• 社會發展에 대한 言論人의 關心
• 社會開發事業의 優先순위
• 맺음
• 7. 맺는 말