week8

CONFIRMATION


It is hard to distinguish main stream culture and indie culture. However, there is a certain wall between two of themㅡin terms of fame, pay, or reactions of the pulbic. I'll prove that current indie scene has problems through comparing two cultures. There are some reasons to support my idea. They can be distinguished into two partsㅡthe problem of the indie scene and the problem of the public. Three reasons are lack of PR, lack of professional work force, and bias of the public. First and
second one are originated in its own scene, and last problem is originated in the public rather than the scene.

First, lack of public relations interrupt the communication between current Korean indie scene and the public. This one influences to last one because it is related closely. PR or marketing is core strategy to compete with other culture resources. Many indie culture directors do not aware importance of marketing because they believe the public will recognize compexity of indie culture someday as long as they create nice contents. However, it is hard to compete with main stream culture that always uses attractive PR skills. The public is easy to be attracted by another culture contents rather than boring and dull indie culture. Main stream culture never gives time to examine if indie culture is good or not. Not only because of directors' unawareness, it is caused by lack of money. Without huge capital, this scene cannot afford huge cost of marketing. As a result, indie culture loses opportunity to display its attraction to people.

Second, lack of professional work force also contributes to problems of Korean indie scene. In Korean indie culture scene, directors are who didn't get any professional education of directing culture or art. Art management is not popular in Korea. Furthermore, for INDIE culture, it is hard to find someone wanting to learn how to work on it. As a result of less professional education of art and culture, there isn't enough work force to improve Korean indie scene. Moreover, there is a bias that culture or art practician do not earn enough money. It makes people hard to strive to concentrate on the work. Lack of work force also makes lack of creativity. So it is important to realize the reality of current indie scene and enhance it.

Lastly, bias of the public also makes the bad communication between current Korean indie scene and the public. Middle of the political and ideological changes, Korean indie culture grew up around Hongdae during 1990s. Hongdae(Hong ik Univerisity) is famous for a college of fine arts. Because of this, there is a freewheeling atmosphere around it. This atmosphere contributed to the formation of Korean indie scene around Hongdae. However, because this scene is too concetrated around there, people misunderstood it as a culture of alcohol, drug or adult entertainment. Also, this bias makes gab between users of indie culture and non-users. It worsens the lack of communications between them and it really makes the schene isolated.