<論説>韓国における偽史言説の「大衆化」とメディア (特集 : 嘘)

Abstract

本稿は、先行研究が抱える「偽史言説が広まる背景の学際的検討の不足」と「歴史大衆化と偽史批判との関係性の検討不足」という二つの課題に応え、韓国における偽史言説の「大衆化」を、一九九〇年代から二〇〇〇年代にかけてのメディア環境の変化を軸に考察する。偽史言説が一九九〇年代に大衆文学の商業性を取り込み、二〇〇〇年前後にはインターネットの普及と愛国主義の高揚を背景に拡大した過程を分析した。また、メディア環境の変化により、次第に多くの人々が偽史言説の消費者としてだけでなく、生産者としても関与するという一貫した流れが形成されたことを明確にし、偽史言説の批判者と信奉者の対立が激化したことも示した。これにより、偽史言説の「大衆化」がメディアとの相互作用によってどのように進行したのかが浮き彫りになった。本稿は、これらを通じて偽史言説の変容を長期的視点で捉え、メディアとの関係を動態的に解明している。

The purpose of this paper is to examine the “popularization” of pseudohistorical discourse in Korea based on the changes in the media environment from the 1990s to the 2000s, and to clarify the process of its diffusion and transformation. In response to two issues addressed in previous research, namely the lack of interdisciplinary examination of the background to the spread of pseudo-historical discourse and the lack of examination of the relationship between the popularizing history and the critique of pseudo-history, I will analyze how pseudo-historical discourse has been accepted and reproduced. This paper examines changes and provides specific examples of the media environment related to the production and consumption of pseudohistorical discourse from the 1990s to the 2010s. I analyze popular literature, Internet communities, and online controversies to elucidate the influence of the media environment on the spread of pseudo-historical discourse. In particular, this paper focuses on the impact of the growth of popular literature and the spread of the Internet on the “popularization” of pseudo-historical discourse. Within this paper, I first summarize the trends, characteristics, and issues found in previous research on pseudo-historical discourse and forged writings in Korea. Before examining them, I divided the studies into those done prior to the year 2000 and those from 2010 onwards, and I confirmed that behind these studies of the diffusion of pseudo-historical discourse and its influence was a sense of crisis in the community of academic historians. Next, based on the trends and issues dealt with in previous research, I saw the “popularization” of pseudo-historical discourse accompanying changes in the media environment from the dynamic perspective of “production and consumption” and classified the diffusion process. Specifically, I analyzed the content and characteristics of pseudo-historical discourse found in popular literature that had become popular in Korea in the 1990s, the themes of pseudo-historical discourse in large online communities (“cafes”) created in the 2000s, and the historical background surrounding them. In this way, I have clarified that while pseudo-historical discourse displays patriotic and xenophobic characteristics, pseudohistorical discourse has been widely disseminated to the masses through popular literature, and that the spread of the Internet has transformed consumers of conventional passive pseudo-historical discourse into producers of it. This paper elucidates these consistent trends of “popularization” of pseudo-historical discourse since the 1990s. Due to changes in the media environment, more and more people gradually became involved not only as consumers of pseudo-historical discourse, but also as active producers. This trend includes the acceleration of the spread of the Internet around the year 2000, and the confrontation between critics and followers of pseudohistorical discourse in the Internet controversies of the 2010s, and finally the process of the weakening power of believers. It also points out that the reinvigoration of criticism of pseudo-historical discourse in the late 2010s may have developed in continuity with the Internet debates that preceded it. Through these studies, this paper examines the transformation of pseudo-historical discourse from a long-term perspective and dynamically elucidates its relationship with the media. It points out that the trend of consuming existing pseudo-historical discourses and producing original discourses through online communities where non-expert individuals can easily browse and freely use historical materials is an important insight into the “popularizing history” that has been sought in the academic discipline of history.