#11 - Se-Woong Koo

Behind the glitter of Korea's economic success story lies a land of fault lines and social strife. Regionalism and factionalism are defining aspects of Korea’s politics and social fabric, while the rights of workers and minorities are sacrificed in the name of economic efficiency and social conformity. The media cannot report freely, foreign journalists and scholars are under pressure to spin a positive image of Korea abroad, and Koreans themselves live in fear of repression should they express ideas their government does not share.

This rather grim portrayal of South Korea is what you may be tempted to take away from KoreaExpose.com. According to its founder and editor-in-chief, Dr. Se-Woong Koo, Korea Expose is dedicated to covering topics that do not receive enough attention from both South Korean and foreign media. As he argues, reporting about poverty, discrimination and disenfranchisement isn’t compatible with the image South Korea wants to broadcast to the world.

We talked to Dr. Koo about his plans for Korea Expose, the media’s failure to cover difficult and often controversial topics, and some of the injustices Korea suffers from.

After receiving his PhD in Religious Studies from Stanford University, Dr. Koo was a Korea Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris and taught Korean studies at Stanford, Yale and Ewha Womans University. His writings have been featured in numerous publications, including Foreign Policy and The New York Times.