언론인 인식을 통한 한국사회와 언론 자유의 조건 연구

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Discussions of freedom of the press always presuppose circumstances or conditions of unfreedom. At the center of recent debates on press reform in Korea, which have revolved around issues of editorial independence and interventions either by the government or the ownership into the editorial processes, also lie questions relating to freedom of journalistic activities. This topic has produced numerous academic contributions from diverse perspectives for over the past fifty years since the inauguration of the First Republic in 1948. However, most studies have relied either on surveys of journalists at a fixed moment or critical analyses of institutional or legal frameworks for repressive governmental control.
This study radically departs from this line of research. Using in-depth interviews with nine life-time journalists, who respectively have worked from the mid 1950s and 1960s through late 1990s, this study attempted to produce sets of concrete data that reflect structural and institutional changes of the Korean press over the past five decades. Therefore, findings of this study are largely based on personal testimonies of these journalists. These testimonies range from discussions of details on how differently or similarly each government exercized influence over press activities, the changing channels and modes of communication from the powerful to journalists, to descriptions of gradual changes in internal processes of editorial decision-making. In the concluding part, the paper lists suggestions by these journalists on the basic conditions for a free press in the Korean society.