Digital / Humanities: New Media and Old Ways in South Korea

Abstract

This article outlines the background to the divide between ‘the digital’ and ‘the humanities’ in contemporary South Korea. Since the late 1990s, the government of South Korea has made concerted efforts to digitize information, resulting in increased access to an unusually high quantity of heritage sources. However, the massive investments in the building of online resources have not inspired a ‘digital turn’ in the mainstream of South Korea’s departments in the humanities. This indifference to ‘the digital’, or what might be called a ‘digital/humanities divide’ has a history going back to the 1980s, when the Korean government and business leaders prepared for a post-industrial transition without drawing the interest of humanists and without expecting the nation’s remarkable success in ict.