Colonial Media Space and the Intelligentsia in Kyŏngsŏng during the 1920s and 1930s: The Case of Choi Seung-Ils Life History

Abstract

This study attempts to reconstitute the life history of Choi Seung-il (崔承一, 1901-?), a famous Korean intellectual of the colonial period. It especially focuses on his media career. As did his many fellow literati, Choi played an active part in diverse media and cultural arenas. During the period of 1920-1930s, he held various positions (magazine editor, writer, play director, radio program director, stage manager, etc.) with a socialist orientation in the Korean cultural scene. He also wrote several moderrnologist essays on the media culture in Kyŏngsŏng. However, he became a pro-Japanese film producer in the late 1930s, and produced Volunteer, a militarist propaganda movie. We assume that Chois media career and writings reveal, beyond his personal idiosyncrasy, the specific relationship between colonial media space and the intelligentsia. In this context, we try to clarify this relationship, conceptualizing media space as an important structural space of opportunity and phenomenological space of experience for the colonial intelligentsia. Chois life history clearly shows how the colonial intelligentsia continued to reconstruct media space by his thoughts and activities.