My dissertation examines discourses and practices that surrounded consumption and
production of advertising in South Korea in the first decade of the 21st century. In its approach,
my study breaks away from works that assume that advertising performs the same role
universally and that local advertising industries should follow the uniform path of development,
in terms of both creative content and industry structures. Treating advertising as an integral
part of social reality, I embed my analysis in Korea's idiosyncratic social, cultural, political, and
economic contexts to interrogate non-marketing functions of advertising. My dissertation
investigates multiple projects that advertising mediates in contemporary South Korea, from
challenging social norms and renegotiating cultural meanings, to contesting capitalist control
over mass media and articulating fantasies of humanist capitalism. I explore how advertising
consumers (including advertising censors) and advertising producers channel, shape, enable or
block the flows of advertising messages and revenues. My conclusion is that, in South Korea,
the marketing instrumentality of advertising is subordinated to the ethos of public interest, and
both advertising consumers and producers strive for advertising that promotes humanist values
and realizes democratic ideals, even if it jeopardizes the commercial interests of advertisers.
Theoretically, this study builds on critical theory and anthropology of media while drawing on
Korean Studies scholarship to grasp interconnections between the practices of advertising