This paper shows the changing media coverage of asbestos risk in the four major newspapers of Korea (Dong-ah, Kyunghyang, Hankyoreh and Maeil business) since its first appearance in 1966. Primarily drawing on foreign sources, the earlier reports were limi…

This paper shows the changing media coverage of asbestos risk in the four major newspapers of Korea (Dong-ah, Kyunghyang, Hankyoreh and Maeil business) since its first appearance in 1966. Primarily drawing on foreign sources, the earlier reports were limited in number and tended to be fact-oriented. Yet a notable change took place in the late 1980s, during the heydays of the democratization movement, when the media began to pay attention to the issue of occupational hazards of asbestos in the workplace. Subsequently, environmental risk of asbestos in open spaces such as subway stations and elementary schools was exposed, and the public concerns about asbestos risk peaked during the “baby powder scandal” in 2009-2010. Analyzing more than 900 media reports for 47 years in terms of the coverage of susceptibility (possibility of risk exposure), severity (damage severity after exposure) and efficacy (countermeasure for reduction), this paper argues that environmental risk communication is a manifestation of risk concerns constructed in specific historical contexts. It aims to offer a way of interpreting the contents of risk communication from the standpoint of social constructivism that sees science as a body of “constructed” or “situated” knowledge, instead of that of unchanging, truth-defining one. Key words: risk communication, asbestos, environmental health, susceptibility, severity, efficacy Click the following link for downloading the article: https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002008506

The 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Daubert v. Merrel Dow Chemical, Inc. has changed the ways in which scientific evidence is evaluated for legal purposes. A new set of guidelines, called thereafter the Daubert Standard, that was intended to increase …

The 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Daubert v. Merrel Dow Chemical, Inc. has changed the ways in which scientific evidence is evaluated for legal purposes. A new set of guidelines, called thereafter the Daubert Standard, that was intended to increase the judge's authority in determining the admissibility of scientific evidence in the court, turns out to have increased the burden of proof on the part of plaintiffs and have also considerably influenced the outcome of policy decisions in the regulatory areas. This paper analyzes the changes made in the relationship between science and law after the introduction of the Daubert Standard, examining the epistemological differences between its proponents and opponents. The judge's dilemma as a gatekeeper, this paper argues, is not simply that of an 'amateur scientist' seeking to learn and practice scientific knowledge per se. Rather, the dilemma ought to be that of an 'legal expert,' faithful to ethos of social justice without succumbing to the practical convenience of the Daubert Standard. This paper also suggests that there is much room for STS scholars to make contributions to the use of science in legal settings by conducting in-depth studies on court cases in the broad social and political context. Click the following link for downloading the article: https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002012884

This study analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance in South Korea, taking advantage of the policy changes on the stem cell research after Hwang's affair. In spite of generally accepted conventional wisdom that stem cel…

This study analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance in South Korea, taking advantage of the policy changes on the stem cell research after Hwang's affair. In spite of generally accepted conventional wisdom that stem cell research had been suffering ‘crisis’ after the Hwang’s affair, South Korea succeeded in developing thefirstandthelargeststemcellproduct in the world. However, considering the fact that the stem cell research capabilities and technological competitiveness of Korea have been assessed as relatively low compared to the development performance, there is a need to extrapolate how such result could be achieved. To answer these questions , we analyzed changes in the R&D expenditure before and after the scandal and verified the ‘crisis of stem cell research’ following the reduction of financial support from government. From the analysis of literature on the policy reports and news, we described the process of discourse changes in policy and analyzed the characteristics of the politics of technoscience and governance of stem cell research. This study emphasized that the government R&D and regulation policy play the key roles in the development of stem cell research rather than in the technological competitiveness in South Korea. Furthermore, this study argued that democratic governance still does not work under the policy conditions that technocratic decision-making of stem cell research fails to learn from the Hwang’s affairs. Click the following link for downloading the article: https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002012883

Human Genome Project was a big science done by United States, U.K., France, China, Germany and Japan. But in Korea HGP was not constructed because of lack of governmental funding and failure to attract relevant actors’ attention in spite of small voices …

Human Genome Project was a big science done by United States, U.K., France, China, Germany and Japan. But in Korea HGP was not constructed because of lack of governmental funding and failure to attract relevant actors’ attention in spite of small voices from early genome researchers and some family members of patients with incurable diseases. This article does not argue that HGP in Korea was an undone science, a concept claimed by Scott Frickel, et al. Instead, it shows the historical fact that HGP was not constructed in Korea in 1990s and analyzes how genomic researches could become possible in Korea in the post-genomic age using the framework of triple-helix. In Korea, researchers have constructed hybrid networks and organizations that intermingles laboratories of university, industry, and government to conduct genomic researches which requires a lot of financial funding. This structure is different from the entrepreneurial university seen in developed countries such as the United States. Using two examples, this article shows that founding a start-up company by university researchers was not an option as in the United States, but a necessity in order to obtain enough funding to conduct genomic researches in Korea. Otherwise, researchers in Korean universities had to form hybrid networks with government to obtain small amount of funds to conduct researches. I argue that this phenomenon shows multifaceted characteristics of institutional structures regarding genomic researches in Korea. Click the following link for downloading the article: https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/ci/sereArticleSearch/ciSereArtiView.kci?sereArticleSearchBean.artiId=ART002012882

This paper explores what we call ʻthe problem of undone social scienceʼ by examining the lack of interests in the social, ethical, and legal issues of synthetic biology among social scientists in Korea. This new field of science, which has emerg…

This paper explores what we call ʻthe problem of undone social scienceʼ by examining the lack of interests in the social, ethical, and legal issues of synthetic biology among social scientists in Korea. This new field of science, which has emerged in the twenty-first century with the promise of solving future problems of energy, food, and disease in the world, has also created a considerable degree of anxiety over the issues of bioethics, biosafety, and biosecurity. From its beginning, therefore, researchers of synthetic biology in Europe and the U.S. have sought to engage social scientists in their projects. Yet scientists and social scientists in Korea have shown no sign of working together to deal with both potential benefits and risks of synthetic biology. Why this silence? What strategic moves would be needed to overcome the structural barrier for their collaboration? Surveying the diverse methodologies developed during and after ELSI(ethical, legal, social implications) experiments, this paper aims to provide three suggestions that might make possible mutually profitable and continuously stimulating dialogues between the two worlds of science and social science: first, institutionalize the ELSI studies on any newly emerging science and technology of concern; second, explore diverse post-ELSI methodologies experimented elsewhere and develop ones that might be applicable best to the Korean situation; and third and perhaps most important, create an intellectual space and a lawful protection for social scientists to exercise their research freedom at the reasonable level and receive a fair review by their peers, not solely by funding agencies and scientific organizations. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/3648648

Functional Magnetic Resonance Angiography (fMRA) was a technoscientific innovation that allows scientists to directly view the changes made in the blood vessels of a brain. fMRA was first developed at Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) in Korea. fMRA m…

Functional Magnetic Resonance Angiography (fMRA) was a technoscientific innovation that allows scientists to directly view the changes made in the blood vessels of a brain. fMRA was first developed at Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) in Korea. fMRA mainly utilizes 7 Tesla MRI technology, and NRI is equipped with the instrument. First article on fMRA was published in 2008, and two more papers in 2010 and 2012 consecutively had been published on the newly developed technique. However, fMRA is a competitive technology with existing fMRI. Both techniques capture microvascular changes in a brain, and by doing it, both techniques visualize the cognitive and affective changes. fMRI technology was introduced by Seiji Ogawa in the early 1990ʼs and has been widely used since then. In contrast, fMRA was a newer technology and rather unknown. Developers of fMRA in NRI used series of signifiant-politics in order to make it better known to scientific community as well as public. By resetting the boundaries of existing concept of fMRI, they tried to lower the threshold of a new concept/technique. This case study shows how technoscientists use semiotic strategies governing new technology. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/3648651

Ulrich Beck has characterized modern society as risk society in which risks are mediated by science & technology and social institutions. This paper explains the changes in Beck’s ideas as he has moved from the theory of risk society to the theory of glo…

Ulrich Beck has characterized modern society as risk society in which risks are mediated by science & technology and social institutions. This paper explains the changes in Beck’s ideas as he has moved from the theory of risk society to the theory of global risk society and cosmopolitanism and also examines how Korean sociologists have studied risks in Korea using his concepts and theories. In the 1990s, a series of disastrous incidents and national financial crisis forced Koreans to look at Korean society reflexively. The concept of risk society was therefore embraced warmly by Korean sociologists who looked for new concepts and theories to analyze the risks Korean society was facing. Korean sociologists, however, did not merely adopt the theory of risk society. They underscored unique experiences of Korea and, in so doing, highlighted the historical context of the theory of risk society, which fostered modification of the theory. By contrast, Beck’s recent development of theories of the global risk society and cosmopolitanism failed to have much impact on Korean sociology. To enhance research on global risks from the perspective of cosmopolitanism, this paper highlights three potential research areas in science & technology studies (STS) which include research on glocalization of science and technology regulation policies, research on performativity of knowledge and prediction, and research on the roles of international institutes in domestic risk politics. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/3548560

Recently, governance of science and technology emerged as one of most important social problems and as a result it is crucial to understand it in science and technology studies. This article discusses three most important realms in science and technology …

Recently, governance of science and technology emerged as one of most important social problems and as a result it is crucial to understand it in science and technology studies. This article discusses three most important realms in science and technology goverance – research and development, regulation, and social movement – in the concrete Korean contexts. First of all, the Korean state has driven research and development and promoted its commercialization unlike other developed countries. Consequently, this nationalistic view on science disseminated to Korean public and it generated uniformity in research style and organization. Second, science and technology regulations embraced developed countriesʼ policies, leading to its glocalization. As a result, technocratic old governance and new governance including precautionary principle and participatory democracy coexist. Third, the civil society has challenged expertise and state-driven science and technology governance and fueled social movements related to environment, safety, and health issues. The politics of knowledge created by citizensʼ voluntary participation and collaborative experts made it clear that science and technology should be no longer tool for economic development. In conclusion, we discuss characteristics of science and technology governance in Korea, giving various implication on current research and policy. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/3648646

In the controversy over global climate change, climate change skeptics have argued that mainstream climate scientists, influenced by their interest of research fund and liberal political ideology, exaggerated the seriousness of global climate change for p…

In the controversy over global climate change, climate change skeptics have argued that mainstream climate scientists, influenced by their interest of research fund and liberal political ideology, exaggerated the seriousness of global climate change for political purposes and made uncertain claim of anthropogenic global warming. To test the validity of the skeptics’ claim, we classify a sample of Korean scientists into three groups, contributory experts who conduct climate research, interactional experts who do not conduct climate research but have much knowledge on it, and scientists–in–general who do not have much knowledge on climate change, and compare their perceptions of global climate change. We hypothesize that, if scientists’ interest of research fund has effect on their perceptions of climate change, contributory experts of such interest may perceive it as a more serious problem than other scientists do. The results of this study, however, disconfirm it. The level of knowledge on climate change and political ideology of scientists also turn out not to influence their perceptions of global climate change. These results strongly suggest that the blame on mainstream climate scientists for exaggerating climate change issues by skeptics might be groundless and that interest–based explanation of scientists’ risk perceptions would be too simple to understand complex relationship between science and society. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/3547597

The politics surrounding Korean cap and trade policy is riddled with competing visions of carbon markets, product markets, and the government. Broadly drawing on concepts from constructivism (‘coproduction’) and economic sociology (‘embeddedness’), th…

The politics surrounding Korean cap and trade policy is riddled with competing visions of carbon markets, product markets, and the government. Broadly drawing on concepts from constructivism (‘coproduction’) and economic sociology (‘embeddedness’), this paper argues that the relationship between carbon markets and product markets is characterized as ‘interactional coproduction’, while the relationship between carbon markets and the government is based on ‘constitutive coproduction’. Moreover, I argue that, in social conflicts, the future of carbon markets is interpretively diverse with respect to greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas emission information, and greenhouse gas emission permits. The future of product markets is at issue regarding market competitiveness, business inequality, and social inequality. In the Act on the Allocation and Trading of Greenhouse-Gas Emission Permits, the envisaged roles of the Korean government are embedded in the specific policy schemes of carbon markets. The government is viewed as regulator, supporter, market manager, and participant, but not as redistributor. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1523908X.2013.865510#.VPVUv2f9ncs

The Camp Carroll controversy occurred in the aftermath of testimony given by three veteran United States soldiers, who stated that the Eighth US Army buried Agent Orange at Camp Carroll in South Korea during the late 1970s. This paper focuses on three sci…

The Camp Carroll controversy occurred in the aftermath of testimony given by three veteran United States soldiers, who stated that the Eighth US Army buried Agent Orange at Camp Carroll in South Korea during the late 1970s. This paper focuses on three scientific debates arising from the activities of the ROK–US Joint Investigation Team, which conducted an extensive probe into this allegation over a period of eight months. Critically engaging with Silvio Funtowicz and Jarome Ravetz’s typology of scientific uncertainty, the paper explores how scientific uncertainty is apparent in these debates, and how the Joint Investigation Team determined the hierarchy of evidence when finalizing its report. The main findings are summarized below. The Joint Investigation Team examined interview, documentary, and scientific evidence in order to prove the alleged burial of Agent Orange at Camp Carroll. The investigation faced technical, methodological, and epistemological challenges by various stakeholders. In the absence of contradictory scientific and documentary evidence, the team rejected interview evidence from the former United States Forces Korea veterans, in accordance with a technocratic approach to evidentiary hierarchy. Scientific uncertainty was used as a shield to block the institutional discussion of and therefore revision to the US–ROK Status of Forces Agreement. The conclusion highlights my critical thinking about Funtowicz and Ravetz’s concept of scientific uncertainty. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13669877.2014.961508#.VPVUk2f9ncs

For the past 20 years, expert groups and citizens in Korea have debated on the usefulness of personalized medicine. These debates were mainly focussed on the possibility of the promise – people mainly discussed whether it was a probable future or if…

For the past 20 years, expert groups and citizens in Korea have debated on the usefulness of personalized medicine. These debates were mainly focussed on the possibility of the promise – people mainly discussed whether it was a probable future or if it was just a hype. Following Hedgecoe and Tutton(2002) who argue that it is only a ‘rhetorial device’, we will analyze about 9,000 news media coverages that deal with personalized medicine. With these data, we will show that the same terminology of personalized medicine have been used very differently according to the time and people who use it. Our research will show that this term has both diachronic heterogeneity and synchronic equivocality. This has happened because of the innate lack that exists in our symbolic system. Policy and governance regarding new technology is important because they provide quilting point to those slippery term/signifiant. Also we would like to carefully suggest that we might be able to call this phenomena as signifiant-politics. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Article/3462142

This article examines how the Korean government’s decision concerning the import of US beef sparkedmassive candlelight protests for severalmonths in 2008 and beyond. Emphasizing indeterminacy of participation, this article characterizes the unpredictable…

This article examines how the Korean government’s decision concerning the import of US beef sparkedmassive candlelight protests for severalmonths in 2008 and beyond. Emphasizing indeterminacy of participation, this article characterizes the unpredictable and emergent formation of public groups online and offline as networked publics and their diverse and unpredictable ways of participation as multitentacled. Because scientific claims regarding mad cow disease (BSE) were among the central issues galvanizing participation, I pay close attention to how networked publics constructed collaborative expertise to counter government logic. Conceptually, this article analyzes recent discussions of public participation in STS and then highlights the indeterminacy of its participation and the mutual process of constructing scientific claims shared by protesters and experts. Empirically, this study primarily depends on a variety of data elicited from observation, interviews, and various literatures. In the discussion section, I raise questions concerning how we should understand public participation differently in STS and how the Internet age brings us new forms of politics and participation. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://easts.dukejournals.org/content/8/2/229.short

Focusing on the changing relationships among the state, civil society, and science and technology (S&T) in contemporary Korean history, this article reviews the literature of science and technology studies on the politics of technoscience in South Korea. …

Focusing on the changing relationships among the state, civil society, and science and technology (S&T) in contemporary Korean history, this article reviews the literature of science and technology studies on the politics of technoscience in South Korea. Arguing that the active role of the state in developing S&T is a defining characteristic of Korean S&T, this article first reviews the statist approaches to S&T, where the politics of technoscience involves mainly policy decisions. Then, by reviewing work on the role of nationalism in Korean technoscience, this article discusses the literature with attention to the reciprocal relationships between technoscience and political power mediated by the nationalist view of S&T. Next, this article evaluates the literature on the Biosafety and Bioethics Act, with emphasis on the interactions among diverse actors, nongovernmental organization activists in particular, in the legislative process. Finally, the literature on public participation and social movements in technoscience is discussed. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://easts.dukejournals.org/content/8/2/159.short

Regulations for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Korea fluctuate between technocracy and the precautionary principle (PP). Technocratic PP denotes the coexistence, or coproduction, of technocracy with PP – a complex ensemble of t…

Regulations for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Korea fluctuate between technocracy and the precautionary principle (PP). Technocratic PP denotes the coexistence, or coproduction, of technocracy with PP – a complex ensemble of technocratic, precautionary policies, and hybrids of the two. This paper analyzes four types of PP-based policies linked to Korean GMO regulations: foresight and monitoring of risk; reverse burden of proof; public participation; and the public’s right to know. Korean GMO regulations are consistent with the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, a type of PP, but lack long-term risk assessment as well as public participation. Technocracy is embedded both in advance informed agreements as a reverse burden of proof and in proof-based GMO labeling as a right-to-know policy. Technocratic PP results in inconsistencies between PP and technocratic epistemology and the gap between PP-based institutions and technocratic practices. Technocratic PP is therefore a typical phenomenon that occurs in the “glocalization” of risk regulation. Click the following link for downloading the article: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14636778.2014.917916#.VPVT5Gf9ncs