Promoting the ICT Industry for the future with fears from the past

Abstract Unlike other developed countries, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) discourse has become the central element within technology governance in Korea. This paper examines the reasons for the discourse’s success and its political and social implications. Based on the analysis of policy doc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience & public policy Vol. 48; no. 6; pp. 889 - 899
Main Author Kim, Jongheon
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published UK Oxford University Press 01.12.2021
Subjects
Humanities and Social Sciences
Political science
Sociology
AI governance
sociotechnical imaginary
ICT
Fourth Industrial Revolution
deregulation
Sociotechnical imaginary
Deregulation
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Summary:Abstract Unlike other developed countries, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) discourse has become the central element within technology governance in Korea. This paper examines the reasons for the discourse’s success and its political and social implications. Based on the analysis of policy documents and the media coverage, I argue that political and economic elites have actively introduced the 4IR discourse to create novel momentum for promoting Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and to justify deregulatory measures while re-enacting the developmentalist imaginary. I also highlight that the 4IR discourse’s promoters have drawn upon the dialectics between the desirable future and the nation’s shared fear to urge the Korean society to accept the measures privileging the industry as the means of making the nation a developed country and avoiding being colonized again.
ISSN:0302-3427
1471-5430
DOI:10.1093/scipol/scab056