Intersections of journalism, language, and globalization: South Korea’s English-language press

This study examined locally-owned-and-operated English-language press outlets in South Korea to uncover how a language of publication—in this case English as a foreign language in South Korea—informs the discourses that bind journalists together into an interpretive community. Interviews with more than 35 journalists at nine English-language news organizations, spread over 14 weeks of field work, revealed that shared beliefs about English directly informed the interpretive community’s understandings of public service, which included informing readers overseas and in Korea, introducing Korean perspectives into global English-language news flows, and giving Koreans a tool with which they can learn English. Beliefs about the language of publication also shaped journalists’ understandings of audience, strategies for achieving and maintaining relevance in a predominantly Korean-language news market, and their own motivations for working in the English-language press. In short, language of publication fed into multiple aspects of the ways journalists create themselves and their work as meaningful.