Between Surveillance and Freedom: Techno-Politics in South Korea during the COVID-19 Pandemic

IF 1.4 4区社会学 Q1 AREA STUDIES

Pacific Affairs Pub Date : 2022-12-01 DOI:10.5509/2022954787

Jaeho Kang

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The South Korean response to the COVID-19 pandemic was mainly characterized—whether positively or negatively—as the efficient implementation of surveillance supported by the extensive deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Yet, the fact that the South Korean management of the pandemic was also maintained by citizens' voluntary participation in stringent quarantine policies has received little critical attention. Through the lens of techno-politics, this essay examines the distinctive interplay of digital monitoring systems and civic engagement in South Korea during the pandemic, with particular reference to data surveillance, horizontal collectivism, and a networked multitude. In capturing the essential features of South Korean pandemic politics as reflecting key components of techno-populism, this essay draws out some social theoretical implications of reconsidering the increasingly close relationship between technology and democracy in the pandemic period.

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在监督与自由之间:新冠疫情期间韩国的技术政治

韩国对新冠肺炎大流行的反应主要表现为——无论是积极的还是消极的——在广泛部署信息和通信技术（ICT）的支持下有效实施监测。然而，韩国对疫情的管理也是通过公民自愿参与严格的隔离政策来维持的，这一事实几乎没有受到批评。通过技术政治的视角，本文考察了疫情期间韩国数字监控系统和公民参与的独特相互作用，特别是数据监控、横向集体主义和网络化群体。通过捕捉韩国疫情政治的本质特征，作为技术民粹主义的关键组成部分，本文引出了重新思考疫情期间技术与民主之间日益密切的关系的一些社会理论含义。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Pacific Affairs AREA STUDIES-

CiteScore

1.60

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Pacific Affairs has, over the years, celebrated and fostered a community of scholars and people active in the life of Asia and the Pacific. It has published scholarly articles of contemporary significance on Asia and the Pacific since 1928. Its initial incarnation from 1926 to 1928 was as a newsletter for the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), but since May 1928, it has been published continuously as a quarterly under the same name. The IPR was a collaborative organization established in 1925 by leaders from several YMCA branches in the Asia Pacific, to “study the conditions of the Pacific people with a view to the improvement of their mutual relations.”