South Korean Contemporary Issues

South Korea is undergoing profound social, cultural, and institutional transformations driven by digitalization, AI, changing forms of recognition, and the global expansion of its cultural industries. This round table brings together four complementary discussions that examine these developments from different sociological perspectives, exploring how contemporary Korean society is reshaping social boundaries, cultural hierarchies, public recognition, and creative production.

The round table is organized into four thematic tables:

a) New Social Boundaries in South Korea: recognition, belonging, citizenship, and exclusion in the context of technological and social change.

b) Symbolic Boundaries in South Korea: taste, distinction, cultural inequality, and the symbolic processes through which social hierarchies are produced and contested.

c) Celebrization and Fandomization of South Korean Society: celebrity culture, fandom, digital media, political participation, and the transformation of authority and public life.

d) Understanding Korea's Creative Industries: cultural production, creative labor, industrial ecosystems, and the institutional foundations of Korea's globally influential creative industries.

Authors submitting abstracts must clearly indicate which of the four thematic tables (a–d) their paper is intended for. Accepted papers will be assigned to the corresponding table for discussion.