Editor's Note

5 Editor’s Note Special Topic: Fields of Modern Knowledge and Journalism This issue has a special section titled “Fields of Modern Knowledge and Journalism.” The articles in this section are supplemented versions and more serious versions of those presented at the academic conference hosted by Ewha Institute for the Humanities in June 2015. The fundamental question raised at the conference was, “How has journalism changed the knowledge field?” This question was raised by looking at dynamics and close interaction between social modernization and knowledge culture. When it comes to socio-cultural modernization, political and economic changes usually come to mind, which are brought about by changes in worldview and knowledge culture. Thus, it is hard to discuss sociocultural modernization without exploring the interaction and dynamics of journalism and the knowledge field, which led to advances in diverse modern media outlets during the modernization of knowledge culture. In the modern era, journalism has played a significant role in creating and generating knowledge and has made contribution to dissemination and popularization of new knowledge. In addition, knowledge associated with journalism has led to changes in the so-called “academism” by critiquing and putting emphasis on practicality in its contemporary era and society as well as has had a positive, or sometimes negative, influence in enhancing social values. In this sense, one can say that examining the role that mass media outlets such as newspapers and magazines had in creating, sharing, and disseminating knowledge allows for examining knowledge culture. Raised for discussion is the question, “How does journalism transform the fields of knowledge where modern ideas are shared and contested and create intrusive dynamics with academism.” With this question in mind, the articles contributed for this special section explore journalism at play in the modern marketplace of ideas and socio- 6 TRANS–HUMANITIES cultural discourse to identify interaction among modern media, language, and humanities and its resulting socio-political impact. Daniel Kim’s “‘The Case of the Mysterious Koreans’: The Meaning of Life, American Orientalism and the Korean War in the Age of the World Target” closely reads coverage of the Korean War in America’s popular magazine, based on Rey Chow’s theory, “World Target,” and Christina Klein’s theory, “Cold War Orientalism,” in order to analyze the image of Koreans and knowledge on Koreans, which was ambiguous, as military intelligence in terms of political and ideological hegemony of the United States that tried to contain the Soviet Union after World War II. Frank Bösch’s “When Private Life Became Political: German Politicians, Sex Scandals, and Mass Media, 1880–1914” looks closely at how modern newspapers and magazines in Germany and the U.K. generated new discourse in the field of sexuality, which was tabooed at the time, and the resulting socio-political impact. The article also shows how the private arena, once considered to be one’s own, was made public by the mass media; how politicians were criticized for their immoralities; how knowledge in social public discourse was expanded; how freedom of expression was limited; and how the public has gained knowledge on sexuality once tabooed. In regard to homosexuality, 1) the facts discovered in the professional field of sexology became common among the public, 2) journalist articles increased interests in academic research, and 3) news articles about sex scandals between colonists and indigenous women and enactment of laws on ruling the colonized are also analyzed. Last but not least, in his “Shorthand Transcription and the Meiji Political Novel,” Seth Jacobowitz looks at Yano Ryūkei (矢野龍渓)’s political novel Sēbe Meishi Keikoku Bidan (斉武名士経国美談, 1883–1884) to focus on the then-cutting-edge technique of shorthand transcription, or sokki (速記), as an alternative way of recording language. This article also focuses on the relations between journalism and popular genres of literature, shedding light on humanities in terms of media history. With this special section, this journal sets a stage for discussion on changes in journalism, the knowledge fields, and knowledge culture and it hopes to play a role as a medium of generating and sharing knowledge to open up to modern ideas. Ki-Jeong Song Editor in Chief ...