<div dir="ltr">To the Korean Studies Community:<br>The University of Hawaii Press is thrilled to announce the following new publication. Congratulations, Professor Fedorenko! What a gorgeous book!<br><br><font size="4"><i><b>Flower of Capitalism: South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads <br></b></i>By Olga Fedorenko (Associate Professor of Anthropology at Seoul National University)</font><br><br><div>[A monograph of the book series Hawai‘i Studies on Korea published by the University of Hawai‘i Press]<div style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><font size="4"><br></font></div><div style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><font size="4"><a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/flower-of-capitalism-south-korean-advertising-at-a-crossroads/" target="_blank">https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/flower-of-capitalism-south-korean-advertising-at-a-crossroads/</a></font></div><div style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(80,0,80)"><img src="cid:ii_l6h9jzii0" alt="IMG_8422.JPG" width="422" height="562"><br></div><div><ul style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;list-style:none;display:flex;width:910px"><li style="margin:0px;box-sizing:inherit;padding:1.25em;border:0px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;width:910px;display:block;min-height:30em"><p style="color:rgb(64,64,64);font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.5em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">An ethnography of advertising in postmillennial South Korea, <span style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:italic;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">Flower of Capitalism: South Korean Advertising at a Crossroads</span> details contests over advertising freedoms and obligations among divergent vested interests while positing far-reaching questions about the social contract that governs advertising in late-capitalist societies. The term “flower of capitalism” is a clichéd metaphor for advertising in South Korea, bringing resolutely positive connotations, which downplay the commercial purposes of advertising and give prominence to its potential for public service. Historically, South Korean advertising was tasked to promote virtue with its messages, while allocation of advertising expenditures among the mass media was monitored and regulated to curb advertisers’ influence in the name of public interest. Though this ideal was often sacrificed to situational considerations, South Korean advertising had been remarkably accountable to public scrutiny and popular demands. </p><p style="color:rgb(64,64,64);font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.5em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">This beneficent role of advertising, however, came under attack as a neoliberal hegemony consolidated in South Korea in the twenty-first century. <span style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:italic;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">Flower of Capitalism</span> examines the clash of advertising’s old obligations and new freedoms, as it was navigated by advertising practitioners, censors, audiences, and activists. It weaves together a rich multi-sited ethnography—at an advertising agency and at an advertising censorship board—with an in-depth exploration of advertising-related controversies—from provocative advertising campaigns to advertising boycotts. Advertising emerges as a contested social institution whose connections to business, mass media, and government are continuously tested and revised. </p><p style="color:rgb(64,64,64);font-family:inherit;font-style:inherit;font-variant-caps:inherit;box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px 0px 1.5em;padding:0px;border:0px;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">Olga Fedorenko challenges the mainstream notions of advertising, which universalize the ways it developed in Transatlantic countries, and offers a glimpse of what advertising could look like if its public effects were taken as seriously as its marketing goals. A critical and innovative intervention into the studies of advertising, <span style="box-sizing:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-family:inherit;font-style:italic;font-variant-caps:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;line-height:inherit;vertical-align:baseline">Flower of Capitalism</span> breaks new ground in current debates on the intersection of media, culture, and politics.</p>[All inquiries, including book reviews requests, to the book series editor Cheehyung Harrison Kim <a href="mailto:chk7@hawaii.edu">chk7@hawaii.edu</a>]</li></ul></div></div></div>