Abstract
The age of the state is not over. Though some have written about the power of web 2.0 to topple regimes and destroy state sovereignty, the picture is a little more complicated. The Republic of Korea in the last two decades has taken on a major cultural export campaign. Led by television dramas and pop music, the “Korean Wave,” as it’s called, has strengthened the ROK’s position as a regional power. More recently, the Republic of Korea started a comprehensive online public diplomacy campaign targeted specifically outside Korea’s ordinary sphere of influence with the goal of developing soft power abroad. Through an examination of tourism statistics, public opinion polls, and Google search trends, this paper ask the question: what if any soft power was generated by these online efforts? The results, though not immediately obvious, provide an early model for a state successfully taking on the new challenges posed by information and communication technologies to generate soft power online. Download this article as a PDF. This paper was prepared as part of a course taught by Shanthi Kalathil at Georgetown University.
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