[KS] [online presentation] Homophobic COVID-19 surveillance on South Korean Social Media

[Nicola Fraschini]

Dear all,

You are invited to join online March 30 (Tuesday) Korea Research Centre of Western Australia seminar series talk, at which Dr Jin Lee will be presenting her work on "Homophobic COVID-19 surveillance on South Korean Social Media". Abstract below and attached.

Date: March 30 (Tuesday)
Time: 4pm (Australia Western Standard Time), 7pm (Australia Eastern Standard Time), 5pm (Korea)
Registration link: https://uwa.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcod-uvpzwtGNOjFpUQMs70xJV29hjXBI3V

Abstract
As the COVID-19 pandemic began to sweep over the world, LGBTQ+ people in South Korea experienced harsh homophobia. A new COVID-19 cluster broke out in May 2020 in a multicultural and club district, Itaewon in South Korea. This 'Itaewon outbreak' shined unwanted attention on the Korean LGBTQ+ community (gay community in particular) and sparked homophobic backlash, as news outlets reported that the infected person had visited gay clubs. In turn, homophobic discourses proliferated online: e.g., blaming "selfish" gays who refuse COVID-19 test for fear of being outed, and stereotyping male gays as "sexual predators" referring to the "AIDS=gay disease" discourse. Consequently, Korean LGBTQ+ Influencers responded to the homophobic COVID-19 discourses in different manners, while showing some extent of self-policing their behaviors online. In this talk, media scholar Jin Lee will explore how homophobic COVID-19 discourses have shaped a network of surveillance against LGBTQ+ people on South Korean social media, and how LGBTQ+ Influencers have coped with the surveillance. In particular, she will trace how news, started from a Christian-affiliated news outlet, has circulated feelings of anger and fear, targeted at LGBTQ+ people in particular, in tandem with attention economies. Then by visiting a few famous LGBTQ+ YouTubers' strategies and practices to cope with surveillance, she will show how queer politics has been depoliticized in the pandemic. This talk will shed light on key issues around the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea, where social minorities are doubly burdened across the offline and online spaces, on the contrary to the story of South Korea's successful management of COVID-19.

Bio
Dr Jin Lee studies media intimacies in social media cultures, particularly focusing on media practices and visibility of social minorities across the "old" and "new" media. She has published a few government reports and several articles in peer-reviewed journals including Media International Australia, Social Media and Society, Critical Studies in Media Communication. She is a Research Fellow in Internet Studies at Curtin University, Australia. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a researcher at the Korean-government's affiliated think tank, Korea Information Society Development Institute.

Inquiries: Korea Research Centre of Western Australia, krc at uwa.edu.au<mailto:krc at uwa.edu.au>

This event is supported by the Core University Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2020-OLU-20200039).



Nicola Fraschini, PhD FHEA
Lecturer
Discipline Chair, Asian Studies
Korean Studies major coordinator
School of Social Sciences  *  M257, Perth WA 6009 Australia
T +61 8 6488 3963  *  E nicola.fraschini at uwa.edu.au<mailto:nicola.fraschini at uwa.edu.au>
[The University of Western Australia]<https://www.web.uwa.edu.au/university-campaigns-resources/emailsig2015/uwa-logo>
[krc-blue1]<https://www.uwa.edu.au/able/research/Korea-Research-Centre-of-Western-Australia>
The University of Western Australia is on the lands of the Whadjuk Noongar peoples. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and  future.
Gnalak katitj nitja Whadjuck Nyungar boodjar gnalak koorl nyinniny.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20210325/b4179d8a/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 5442 bytes
Desc: image001.gif
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20210325/b4179d8a/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: KRC Seminar Series #2 Dr Jin Lee.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 309887 bytes
Desc: KRC Seminar Series #2 Dr Jin Lee.pdf
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20210325/b4179d8a/attachment.pdf>