The Practice and Recording of Censorship in Colonial Korea: A Critical Review of the Chosǒn Publication Monthly Police Report

Abstract

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies Vol.16 No.2 © 2016 Academy of East Asian Studies. 223-242 DOI: 10.21866/esjeas.2016.16.2.005 email of the authors: minju77@hotmail.com, ksjung@snu.ac.kr 223 Introduction Recent years have witnessed increasing scholarly attention to the topic of media censorship in colonial Korea (1910-1945). Whereas earlier research focused primarily on newspapers, these studies have extended to magazines, books, films, music, and other media, and have produced diverse findings on themes such as the colonial censorship system, anti-censorship, and the practical operation of censorship during this period. Current research has focused on the recently discovered text of the colonial Police Bureau’s Chosŏn Publication Monthly Police Report (朝鮮出版警察月報, hereafter the Monthly Report) (Chŏng and Ch’oe 2006). Such studies have yielded detailed statistical analyses of its data and sparked lively debate over its accuracy and scope. Much of the existing work on the Monthly Report does not explicitly question whether its records are accurate and comprehensive. However, the Monthly Report’s official stature does not necessarily guarantee that it fully reflects the actual practice of censorship in the period it covers. If the Monthly Report Recent studies on media censorship in colonial Korea have converged on the newly discovered Chosŏn Publication Monthly Police Report, published from 1928 to 1938 by the colonial government’s censorship bureau. These new studies do not explicitly problematize the issue of whether the Monthly Report is an accurate and comprehensive record of censorship activity or not. However, the record’s official stature does not necessarily guarantee accurate representation of the actual practice of censorship in that period. We found that the numbers of seized or erased articles recorded in the Monthly Report do not correspond with the numbers of articles actually expunged from newspaper pages. This study begins by problematizing the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the Monthly Report censorship records. In addition, it undertakes a comparative analysis of the Monthly Report and contemporary newspapers, employing both record-centric and page-centric approaches. This research also examines how the presence of censorship traces served as tangible evidence of colonial power.