The Rhetoric of a Political Podcast

Kevin (Kyoo Sang) Jo

Professor Ellen Quandahl

RWS 602 Research Project

14 May 2014

 

The Rhetoric of Political Podcasts: A Generic Description of “Naneun Ggomsuda”

Introduction

In December 2012, the presidential election was one of the most important events in the political history in South Korea. It was the significant milestone that selected either the extension of the vested regime, which set democracy back, or the opportunity to restore true democracy. Under the political circumstance, a new podcast program named “Naneun Ggomsuda, (Naggomsu)” (which means “I am a weasel”) attracted public attention. Naggomsu is worthy of analyzing and evaluating because it played an important role in enabling the general public to get interested in politics. Some opinion leaders criticized the podcast because of its explosive popularity which led the podcast’s fans to religious tendency. This prevailing interest in the podcast, including both positive evaluation and negative assessment, demonstrates that it had a tremendous influence on Korean society in 2011-2012. Naggomsu broadcast the first episode on April 27, 2011. It was presented by four hosts, and dealt with the corrupt acts of President Lee Myung-bak and his cronies. On the contrary to the established media, Naggomsu dug into scandals and corruption of the President and his confidants and made a terrific scoop so that young people became excited. This public interest triggered coverage of the established media, which had tried to turn a blind eye to the phenomenon. As a result, the genre of podcast became recognized by the public.

On December 1, 2011, MBN (an economic news network in South Korea) surveyed 1,000 adults between age of 19 and 59 on the reliability of news media. According to the results of the survey, Naggomsu’s reliability was 40%, more than double the 17.2% of major newspapers such as Chosun-Ilbo, Joongang-Ilbo, and Donga-Ilbo. The episode in Aug. 22, 2011 ranked in the first place on Apple iTunes podcast popular episodes. It was the only one in the Korean language in the top 200 popular podcasts. In response to Naggomsu’s popularity, Kim Yong-min, producer of Naggomsu, said as follows:

Our story is not a whole new story, not a huge scoop. So far, most of the story already came out in the media. But we tried to pull out the story that mainstream media ignored, but should not be forgotten again. That’s why the listeners are craving this podcast, I think. We made efforts to dispel the suspicion of the public such as doubt that mainstream media didn’t tell the truth and left it unanswered. (Jeong-Hwan Lee, translated by Jo) 

 

In the field of communication and journalism, several studies investigating Naggomsu have been carried out. Kee-Hyeung Lee et al. examined the role of this podcast both thoroughly and contextually to shed some light on its multifaceted and contentious role through a textual reading and discourse analysis, as well as email interviews. In their opinion, Korean media do not meet the requirement of balancing political issues and problems in Korean society and one-way political comments without communication are rampant. They argued that these media and the political environment disappointed the general public and as a result, Naggomsu suddenly could widen its influence. They expected that Naggomsu would still play an important role in providing political contents. In her Master’s thesis, Mi-Sun Lee practically analyzed the viewpoint of traditional newspaper media on the highly biased media, Naggomsu. She featured three general newspaper companies, including Donga-Ilbo, Hankyoreh, and Hankook-Ilbo, that reported on Naggomsu as subjects and analyzed the contents and frame of the reports in those three newspapers. Her analysis showed that the existing newspaper companies that are proud of their objectivity, in order to place the validity of their objective report on a firm basis, criticized the non-standard characteristics of Naggomsu intensively, and reported its role as alternative press and its positive function in scale-down.

Meanwhile, the study of Naggomsu phenomenon was also undertaken in the political science field. A recent study by Eunho Cha et al. looked into the process by which new internet media’s influence such as Naggomsu was forged and diffused, and the dynamics that its influence leads to the political participation or collective behaviors in Korean society 2011. Their research found that the pre-existing media’s report on Naggomsu played a large role in perceptual diffusion of it among ordinary citizens. As a result of analyzing social data such as online comments written on the downloading web site, news reports regarding Naggomsu, and a number of online fan community of Naggomsu, the pre-existing media is a main carrier to enable social media’s strong influence on the public rather than a pervasive power of social media itself. So far, most studies of Naggomsu have tended to focus on its role or influence rather than its meaningful features in the rhetorical perspective. It has many elements that can be understood with rhetorical perspectives because its contents were transmitted via a new media platform called podcasts. Its narrative includes a variety of rhetorical elements such as satire, metaphor, and irony. Such rhetorical strategies enable it to gain tremendous popularity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate Naggomsu’s characteristics as a genre to discover how it reflects attributes of podcasts. To examine the rhetorical strategies of Naggomsu and its potential influence on its listeners and the Korea society, I will apply the method of generic rhetorical criticism and, in particular, of generic description. Jackson Harrell and Wil A. Linkugel divide rhetorically based genre studies into “at least three distinct operations”: genre description, which involves identifying a new or previously unrecognized genre and “result[s] in a description of the major strategic factors which characterize the genre”; genre participation, which “consists of determining what speeches participate in which genres”; and genre application, an explicitly critical exploration that “consists of the application of factors derived from generic description to specific discourses which have been defined as participating in a given genre” (274–276). Of course, Naggomsu is transmitted via the podcast platform. However, unlike other podcast programs, it has its own unique features as a genre of political podcast. Therefore, through the method of generic description, I will analyze Naggomsu to discover if there are substantive or stylistic features in it and formulate a list of rhetorical strategies. This paper has been divided into three parts. The first part deals with what a podcast is generally. In the second part, I will describe the background information of Naggomsu and explain who the four hosts are and what they do in the podcast. Next, Naggomsu’s unique rhetorical strategies and their effects are examined and at the same time, the political podcast’s characteristics as a genre are identified.

 

What is a podcast?

Before investigating Naggomsu’s characteristics as a genre, it is necessary to understand what it meant by the term “podcast” as a particular medium. Podcast developer Mark Curry conceived of the podcast by using Real Simple Syndication (RSS) technology “to identify and automatically deliver MP3 files to his computer” (McClung and Johnson 83). Curry offered up the technology to open source developers and eventually over 100,000 podcasts became available through the iTunes software (McClung and Johnson 83). The Podcasting Bible defines podcasts as:

A series of audio (or video) programs delivered through a static URL containing an RSS feed that automatically updates a list of programs on the listener’s computer so that people may downloaded new programs using a desktop application. Programs can be delivered to the listener automatically or when they choose to download them. (qtd. in Chen)

 

Podcasts’ producers or hosts are named “podcasters” and the files that they make are “episodes.” The way of using podcasts is the following: Listeners select and subscribe to what they want to listen to in a myriad of podcast programs that podcasters upload on the website. At this time, if they use a typical aggregator, the RSS reader, they could automatically download periodically updated podcasts through the internet onto their own device such as a personal computer, a portable MP3 player, and a smartphone.

Above all, the most important characteristic that appeals to the audience is the podcast format, which centers on its ability to break down the barriers of both time and space, known as time- and location-shifting (Bowie 3). After users download audio podcasts, they can listen to the episodes anywhere and at any time — driving down the road, running on a treadmill, walking to lunch, or taking a bath — and they are not held dependant upon broadcast signals, reception, or internet connectivity (Wolfram 5-6). Unlike a radio show, for example, where the listener must be present at a scheduled time, podcast episodes can be saved and listened to whenever the listener chooses and as many times as he or she likes (Wolfram 6). Podcasts also give their audiences control over navigation, allowing listeners to scan forward and backward or pause episodes – none of which are options in traditional oratory or in other electronic aural technologies (Wolfram 6). The time- and space-shifting characteristics and the increased user control can, at times, give the podcast an advantage over more traditional modes of communication, such as reading, because the user can still access the information while engaging in other activities (Wolfram 6).

The start-up costs of podcasting are relatively inexpensive, and it is possible to create a podcast with the standard recording equipment that is standard for most new computers (Wolfram 6). This is an appealing option for individual hobbyists, non-profit administrators, or teachers, who do not have a budget for more expensive equipment and must keep production costs low (Wolfram 6). The podcast is both inexpensive and relatively easy to produce because of the minimal equipment needed — a computer, a microphone, an inexpensive editing software application, and an internet connection. This makes it an appealing way to broadcast a message to a potential audience of millions. The podcast is made unpredictable because it is able to circumvent the traditional media gatekeeping process and skirt all FCC regulations with regard to language and content (Berry 143-144). The podcast is filtered through no overriding authority and its content is subject to no time restrictions or advertising requirements.

 

The Podcast Dedicated to President Lee

Once a week, the four men sat around in a rented studio, laughing, blurting occasional expletives and making fun of South Korea’s leader, President Lee Myung-bak. Then they posted the recording of their talk online. Their podcast was the most popular in South Korea, with each session logging as many as two million downloads. The four men “dedicated” their show to Mr. Lee, or “His Highness.” But they called their talk show “Naneun Ggomsuda” (Naggomsu), “I’m a Weasel,” or “I’m a Petty-Minded Creep,” borrowing nicknames Mr. Lee’s most vociferous critics applied to the president. In the interview with the New York Times, Kim Ou-joon, the show’s leader, stated that “We try to entertain people by raising all kinds of allegations against His Highness. We offer data to support them, but what really matters is our attitude. We believe that His Highness’s conservative regime has intimidated people. We tell our audience: ‘Let’s not be intimidated! Let’s say whatever we want, even if we’re thrown into jail tomorrow’” (Sang-Hun Choe). The men’s popularity provided the evidence of younger South Koreans’ political awakening amid the rising cost of living, shrinking job prospects and their distrust of Mr. Lee and the country’s conservative mainstream news media.

The main actors of Naggomsu are clearly its four hosts: Kim Ou-joon, Jung Bong-ju, Joo Jin-woo, and Kim Yong-min. Kim Ou-joon is the show’s leader, who actually made the plan to launch the podcast. Despite only managing one political parody website, Ddanzi Times, he has called himself the chairman of the Ddanzi Group since 1998. While the show went on, he played the role of criticizing topics on President Lee, quickly switching between multiple subjects. With his unruly mustache and wild hair, he made the purpose of the show clear by his introductory statement in the first episode: “Hello! Chairman Kim Ou-joon. I made a new talk show. Naneun Ggomsuda. This broadcast is dedicated to His Highness, President Lee. The podcast will continue until President Lee’s term of office ends. President Lee’s corruption is so careful and elaborate that we cannot calculate its exact depth. We will show you it in detail every week.”

The second host, Jung Bong-ju, a political member of the opposition Democratic United Party, accused then-presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak in 2007 of being affiliated with BBK, a company that manipulated stock prices. Relatively unknown before the podcast rose to fame, Mr. Jung played a character with endless bragging comments. He was given the nickname of “funnel,” because everything he said channeled down to self-praise. He was the most talkative of all the hosts. He cut off the others mid-sentence and punctuated almost every statement with a laugh he himself called “silly.” He promoted himself as “a great politician with a beautiful soul and fatally attractive.” He mentioned his soon-to-be-released book every chance he got. When his book on current issues, Run, Jung Bong-ju, came out, it was an immediate best-seller. His online fan club, “Jung Bong-ju and the future powers,” had nearly 150,000 members. Unfortunately, he stopped hosting the podcast because he was sentenced to a year in jail for spreading false rumors. According to Korean law, he could not work as a legislator and lost his eligibility for reelection for 10 years.

The third host, Joo Jin-woo, is an investigative journalist with the newsweekly SisaIN. His muckraking drove his pet enemy, the country’s leading Protestant churches, to call him “Satan’s reporter.” “These days, I am going after one man and one man only: His Highness,” he said about President Lee in an interview. Long before joining Naggomsu, he boldly challenged sensitive subjects such as corruption in the biggest church and nepotism in the district courts. He had a considerable reputation in investigative journalism. Mr. Joo was the first to report that President Lee had bought an expensive piece of real estate in Seoul under his son’s name to build his retirement residence. These actions led him to be involved in many law suits. His investigative reporting was detailed and powerful and it provided significant credibility to the show’s discourse.

The last host, Kim Yong-min, is a former radio commentator. Educated in a Christian seminary and nicknamed “the preacher’s fat son” — his father being a preacher — Mr. Kim sways his girth and belts out songs mocking Mr. Lee to the tunes of church hymns. Since the president is an elder at one of the major Protestant churches in Seoul, this form of mockery is effective. He is the most silent of the four hosts and, moreover, he is often caught dozing during the show. He played a moderator’s role to create an atmosphere in which each host had the opportunity to speak his own opinion. He also corrected wrong information quoted by the hosts, edited the show’s content, and was responsible for uploading them to iTunes.

 

Hangout Talk

Naggomsu takes a different format from general podcasts. It is neither a monologue nor a dialogue. It seems like a kind of talk which happens in a local pub. The leader of Naggomsu, Kim Ou-joon, rarely speaks to the listeners during the broadcast except briefing the subject of the episode or introducing himself initially. Four hosts laugh and chat among themselves without paying attention to the listeners as if they do not care about the listeners. Therefore, the conversation could distract the listeners quite a bit because it has a story-telling format, taking fragmented facts and reconstructing events to make a semi-fictional narrative. Their opinion is not scripted and they interrupt each other continually. Such a discursive format enables the listeners to feel like they are eavesdropping because the hosts rarely seem to take into consideration that the listeners hear their talk. In the 10^th episode, Naggomsu talked about the “Four Major Rivers” project, which is one of President Lee’s biggest plans. Their conversation shows characteristics of eavesdropping well:

Kim Ou-joon: There is a misunderstanding in the Four Major Rivers project. Most people paid attention to its harmful influences such as environmental destruction, uneconomic grand canal, and unprofitable river cruise. However, they are overlooking an important point. Those who graduated from the Dong-ji high school, in which President Lee studied, took over most of the construction work in Nak-dong River. How amazing his Highness’ school spirit!

 

Jung Bong-ju: By the way, you don’t do justice to such a wonderful thing. Most construction companies run by the Dong-ji high school’s alumni are very small so they could not afford to participate in the Four Major Rivers project. Therefore, they formed a consortium with major construction companies like the Daewoo construction company. Daewoo lends its name and then the smaller companies do everything including contracting, planning, and constructing. His Highness took care of everything.

 

Kim Ou-joon: Civil engineering professionals stated that 1.8 billion dollars would be necessary to dig the bottom of the river 1meter deeper. Maybe they dug only 5 meters deep despite saying that they dug 6 meters deep. Who knows how deep they dug? We will never know because the bottom of the river is covered by sand. They got money for 6m, but may have only dug 5m. Moreover, they did not show the amount of dredging. Where does the money go? Of course, His Highness is not likely to get the money because he would never do something like that. That’s just my guess. (laughs)

 

Jung Bong-ju: When I met with citizens, they did not understand why such a thing happened. Who is the politician who meets the citizens most often? That’s me, Jung Bong-ju. Most citizens that I met do not believe there is corruption in the government. They cannot imagine that there is a man who regards the country as a personal bank.

 

Possibly, with respect to similarity, this eavesdropping is consistent with “mediated voyeurism” which Calvert defined. In Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in Modern Culture, Calvert characterizes the effects of this media saturation on our relations with information and with each other as mediated voyeurism. He defines mediated voyeurism as “the consumption of revealing images of, and information about others' apparently revealed and unguarded lives, often yet not always for purposes of entertainment . . . through the means of the mass media and the Internet” (Calvert 2). Mediated voyeurism traces its origins to the sensationalized tabloid journalism of the late 19^th and early 20^th century. By faking insanity to be committed to an insane asylum or strapping a camera to an ankle to capture photographs of the execution of a convicted murderer, early tabloid reporters offered their readers glimpses into the lives of others, glimpses that seem more real because they are secret. The conventions of film have been said to make voyeurs of the audience (Calvert 43).

Calvert notes a number of contemporary social forces that promote mediated voyeurism, and three of them are especially meaningful for our purposes. First, there is the pursuit of “truth” in an increasingly media-saturated world; dissatisfaction with the increasing mediation of journalism leads to an interest in information that seems to provide a less mediated and thus more authentic “reality.” Next, there is the desire for excitement, to see others face a “moment of reckoning” in a talk-show confrontation or a “pulse-pounding” amazing home video; in these moments we may vicariously experience challenges that give meaning to life. Last, there is the need for involvement, the desire to be part of the world around us, even though voyeurism by its very nature can provide only the illusion of involvement. Social forces which Calvert notes, including the pursuit of truth, the desire for excitement, and the need for involvement, correspond to eavesdropping as well as voyeurism. In Naggomsu, such a social force played an important role in tempting the audience. For example, in case of the talk show, there are listeners with speakers in the same place, even the listeners sometimes are able to communicate with speakers both in verbal and non-verbal language. In contrast to the interactive environment of the talk show, the listeners in the podcast are spatially separated from the speakers. This spatial segregation causes the listeners to eavesdrop. They also feel special and privileged to take part in private conversation. In doing so, Naggomsu has the rhetorical power of seductiveness.

 

Role Playing: Specialized Characters

The entire time the four hosts seem to make a fuss at random with the appearance of no specified persona; however, those four guys play their own role in the show with decisively specialized characters. In their article, Kee-Hyeung Lee et al. describes the four hosts’ characters as follows:

Above all, the key member is Chairman Kim Ou-joon. He is, to coin a phrase, something. He has a remarkable ability to catch the imagination of the public. He explains complicated political issues easily to the general public. The former congress man, Jung Bong-ju adds an element of interest to the podcast using the so- called ‘funnel.’ The journalist, Joo Jin-woo, provides narrative resources of the podcast with his remarkable investigating power. Kim Yong-min, the former broadcast producer, edits the content of the podcast in refined manner. (Kee-Hyeung Lee et al. 78, translated by Jo)

 

The combination of these specialized characters is one of the main reasons for Naggomsu’s success. The four hosts have their own specialty. Jung Bong-ju, the former congressman, makes the listeners laugh by self-praise with his passionate voice. Most of the time, he also laughs loudly with Kim Ou-joon while they make fun of President Lee. In addition to giving a laugh, he provides insight on political affairs based on his experience as a politician. Joo Jin-woo’s explanations are elaborate and powerful because he has investigated socially and politically sensitive issues for a long time. He supplies the multiple facts about each episode’s issue in order to make a full story episode. Kim Ou-joon leads the program by summarizing the whole story in each episode. Based on the facts that Joo Jin-woo provides, Kim Ou-joon makes a narrative that includes President Lee’s intention as drawn from his intuition. When he explains his fiction, he says that “This is nothing but novel that I try to imagine.” But his so-called fiction is very persuasive, and sometimes turns out to be true. While Jung Bong-ju makes the listeners laugh with self-bragging comments, Kim Yong-min adds an entertaining element to the podcast by imitating President Lee’s voice. Kim Yong-min also takes care of all technical issues such as editing, recording, and uploading.

 

Satire

The topics that Naggomsu covers are not trivial at all, but rather very serious. There are a variety of topics discussed in Naggomsu and they can be roughly classified into four categories: pursuit of private profit by President Lee and his cronies; election intervention by the ruling party and its key figures; immoral behaviors of the privileged such as the super church, mainstream media and prosecution; and introduction of the opposition party’s candidates. Despite such diverse topics, the main subject is always President Lee, just as the subtitle exhibits: “the show is dedicated to His Highness, President Lee.”

Naggomsu conveys a serious message very lightly by means of a rhetorical tool, satire. Naggomsu calls President Lee a weasel because his corruption is too complicated to understand his motives, yet it discloses his petty-mindedness in the end. Whoever listens to any episode of Naggomsu understands the metaphor of the weasel. Nevertheless, whenever Kim Ou-joon analyzes President Lee’s hidden motivation related to his corruption, he ends with the following statement: “His Highness is not that kind of person. If somebody insults our president’s character, it is not acceptable.” The other hosts, as well as Kim Ou-joon, never denounce President Lee in the podcast. For example, in the aforementioned conversation, Jung Bong-ju says that “His Highness took care of everything.” He also sometimes defends the President by stating that “His Highness is never such a man to do such a bad thing.” This ironic situation, which allows them to make sarcastic remarks about the President while in fact supporting him outwardly, is a dominant entertaining feature to attract the audience. Kyung-Wook Min points out that the repetition of “never” in the host’s discussion brings about the ironic effect of affirmation, which means “certainly true” and that the President did do those actions in his study. Through the sarcastic repetition of hosts’ argument that President Lee is not a weasel and does not do such bad things, the listeners become convinced that their choice of making him president has been totally wrong.

In addition, the hosts are always proud of themselves and parade their own achievements. Especially, Jung Bong-ju closes his comments with self-praise of whatever he says. Even other hosts are blown away by his ability to invent bragging comments consistently and they give him the nickname of “funnel.” Jung’s consistent self-bragging is one of entertaining elements which entail seductiveness. The listeners empathize with the four hosts’ narrative and laugh with them while paying attention to the podcast. In the end, the listeners take Naggomsu’s story for granted rather than as an insult of the President’s dignity. This satire provides not only an element of entertainment but also great rhetorical power in Naggomsu. 

 

Partiality

Kim Ou-joon introduced an internet news program in the first episode as follows:

How are you? I’m Kim Ou-joon. When I named my program Kim Ou-joon’s New York Times, many people asked me, ‘Does it have anything to do with the New York Times?’ Nothing. So, why is that? Just for fun. That’s it. What am I going to do in this program? I will just criticize President Lee. Why not? There is no reason why I cannot hate him. Every citizen has a choice to like or dislike the President. That’s not a big deal. Anyway, I dislike him. So, I am going to broadcast my program in a slanted way. I will do my best to make the process for a biased result as fair and objective as I can. (Introductory comment in the first episode of Kim Ou-joon’s New York Times)

 

Naggomsu does not pretend to be objective and is, in fact, very one-sided. Naggomsu’s goal is not merely to criticize the President and the ruling party and to cheer on the opposition party and liberals. The hosts’ major concern is to help the citizens see the lens controlled by the vested interests and stand up for equal rights. They say the podcast is also slanted to check the vested interests. Kim Yong-min pointed out the problem with media under the political circumstances in South Korea as follows:

Right now, I will end my comments by speaking to journalists who have been. They always emphasize fairness and dignity and considered expression of one’s own opinion about current issues low-level behavior. That is really ridiculous. Now, we are faced with crisis of democracy. Even if you do not stand on the side of the powerless, you have responsibility to restrain the rich and powerful. Listen carefully! Unless you do identify what is right and wrong, you are a spokesman for the vested interests. You should know that it is also one-sided action. . . . Naggomsu’s popularity results from media’s dereliction of duty. Shame on you. (Yong-min Kim 111-112, translated by Jo)

 

Naggomsu’s partiality is the reason why the listeners on the side of the vested interests criticize and reject it thoroughly. On the other hand, the very partiality acts as a driving force to constitute a collective identity for those who are not only indifferent to political issues but also do not have their own political opinion, especially young people. If Naggomsu covered both the positive and negative views of President Lee and considered the norm of the press, in other words, fairness, the listeners could not select either side. However, Naggomsu highlighted only negative behavior of President Lee based on factual stories so that the listeners who agreed with them became opposed to President Lee. Naggomsu’s listeners are mostly composed of young people who are familiar with portable electronic device such as smartphones, tablet PCs, and MP3 players. They sympathized with Naggomsu’s contents and added political issues to their list of personal concerns. Politics is, therefore, transformed from a dull, boring, and messy problem that young people do not care about to an interesting and important issue for them. Through Naggomsu, they realized the importance of politics after they knew how many corruptions were committed by President Lee. As a result, they got involved in politics spontaneously. In fact, the turnout from young people in the 2012 presidential election was very high in South Korea. According to the National Election Commission, the turnout from 20’s and 30’s for 2012 presidential election was much higher, 75.8% compared to 63% for the 2007 presidential election.

 

Podcast Platform Technology

A certain internet journalist of PDjournal analyzed influence and significance of Naggomsu in South Korea as follows:

Naggomsu weakened the platform of the traditional media such as newspapers and broadcast companies and promoted the podcast platform extensively. Now, each episode of Naggomsu is being downloaded more than 7 million times and it has become much more influential in forming public opinion than the three major newspapers in South Korea. In the past, most people were limited to only a selective few mainstream broadcast channels. However, the number of active viewers who select a variety of programs on different platforms without time and space limitations is on the rise. Many people were disappointed by the existing media which represented only the view of vested groups. This created a new demand for an alternative media platform. (Cheol-Woon Jung, translated by Jo)

 

Podcast platform made a large contribution to Naggomsu’s success. This new media platform made it possible to criticize political issues freely. Just as UCC (User Created Contents) became very popular because it enabled everyone to be able to produce any content, the podcast also gets popularity in part due to the attribution of user creation. In South Korea, podcasts as well as social network services such as Facebook and Twitter are not controlled by the law because they are under an individual’s privacy. Podcasts are different from the radio shows which transmit their content to the listeners one-way because the listeners selectively download podcasts that they want to listen to. Unless podcasts spread false information and attract lawsuits by those who are hurt by the rumors, there is no legal problem. In this manner, the podcast platform is a good online space for the hosts who want to feel free to comment on politically sensitive issues. The podcast’s characteristics, which were free from the law led the hosts to become confident to speak against the government.

In addition, podcasts can spread its content around world because they use the internet. The global distribution and archival nature of podcasts means that consumption is widely distributed across both space and time. Moreover, the introduction of smartphones made podcasts’ social impact stronger. Smartphones played a great role in Naggomsu’s world-wide popularity. In fact, the number of the Naggomsu’s listeners increased more and more outside of Korea. As a result of the demand of listeners overseas, the hosts gave several lectures and talk concerts in the United States and Europe. Kim Ou-joon kept his eye on the dispersive aspect of the podcast platform in advance. Also, he regards the podcast as a powerful mean which is able to change the biased media environment shaped by the government and traditional major newspapers. He explains his intention to launch Naggomsu as follows:

Currently, what is the biggest obstacle for the liberals to gain ruling power? It is the fact that the message-distribution structure was dominated by the conservatives. The message-distribution is vitally important because the frame is spreading through it. The frame set up in our consciousness is the most powerful. No matter how sophisticated our argument might be, if it is only transmitted in the frame of the conservatives, we never overcome their social structure. (Ou-joon Kim 301, emphasis added)

 

Jung Bong-ju already recognized the media control plan of the Lee administration:

In fact, when Mr. Lee took over the government, his intention of media control was beyond the public’s imagination. He appointed one of his aides, the chairman Choi Si-joong, to the Korea Communications Commission, the government institution that manages broadcasts and media. Then, he replaced the presidents of the nation’s two major public broadcasters unilaterally despite tremendous opposite opinion. In addition, the Lee administration and ruling party railroaded the broadcast and media laws so that it gave the gift of a television broadcast channel to the major conservative newspaper companies advocating for government policy. (Bong-ju Jung 49-50, emphasis added)

 

Jung Bong-ju raised concerns over the media environment, which was more biased by Lee administration. Lee administration planned to control media early in its term by giving preference to the major conservative newspaper companies. Due to the framing of the public’s viewpoint by the government and media, there are rarely changes once it is set up. The framing by the government was maintained for a long time because the vested interests, including the conservatives, dominated the channel such as media and the structure connecting with the channel. This biased media environment is a starting point of the Naggomsu. Kim Ou-joon suggested two possible approaches for solving such a problem:

There are two ways to resist the enormous structure. One is to break the structure directly and the other is to create a new structure. The former method is impossible. I don’t have that much money. That is a one-sided game due to an imbalance in capital, man-power, and political power. . . . I think that the latter method is entirely feasible. In other words, we can make new message-distribution structure which produces a liberal frame. (Ou-joon Kim 301, emphasis added)

 

They already planned to utilize the podcast platform to make their own voice.

 

Conclusion

Naggomsu revealed corruption and immoral behaviors of President Lee and his aides to the public. The hosts really wanted citizens to become more interested in politics and to accomplish a regime change. Their goal was ultimately not achieved because President Park Geun-hye, who was the candidate of the ruling party, was elected in the 2012 presidential election. However, Naggomsu itself was a meaningful phenomenon because it had enormous influence on both the political and media environments. In this article, I tried to discover the reason for Naggomsu’s popularity and rhetorical features as a genre at the same time. A myriad of rhetorical elements that contributed to Naggomsu’s success provides generic characteristics. As a genre of political podcast, Naggomsu features (1) hangout talk, (2) role playing with specialized characters, (3) satire, (4) partiality, and (5) podcast platform technology. These characteristics can be classified into two categories such as substantive and stylistic characteristics. Substantive characteristics are those that constitute the content of the rhetoric and they include rhetorical strategies such as satire and partiality in this context. On the other hand, stylistic characteristics constitute the form of the rhetoric and hangout talk, role playing, and podcast platform belong to them.

In accordance with the feature of hang out, one of net users wrote about Naggomsu’s formal characteristics as follows:

The show spews out politics, from trivial aspects about MB [the President Lee's initials] to hard-ball political issues. The show is very casual as if these middle-aged guys are bickering, making jokes, cursing, and laughing their head off in a snack stall or in a local bar. Young people in their twenties and thirties would be comfortable with this (casual) format of the show, but for people in their late forties who survived the hard time where people ‘mysteriously disappear after make criticisms about the president', it is an extremely shocking show. (Yoo-eun Lee, emphasis added)

 

The casual and discursive format of Naggomsu seems to remind the listeners of the scene in a local bar. Rhetorically, it makes the listeners feel like overhearing private conversation and acts as an attractive feature to them. Also, Naggomsu’s narrative is made of four hosts’ special skills. Joo Jin-woo provides factual sources related to President Lee and political issues. Kim Ou-joon reconstructs a variety of facts, makes a whole story, and interprets motives behind the story. Jung Bong-ju produces an element of interest with self-bragging comments. Kim Yong-min takes charge of technical works such as editing, recording, and uploading while adding humors by imitating of President Lee’s voice. The format that consists of conversation among four specialized hosts is unique. Also, the podcast platform provides the environment that makes the hosts criticize politically sensitive issues and the President’s corruption freely. It is not only unaffected by the law but is also easy to make and distribute. It is an effective medium to express political opinion.

             Naggomsu discusses very serious issues in a light manner. The way of its dealing with topics is satire. First, it harshly criticizes the action of President Lee. However, by defending his personality explicitly, it provokes the listeners to laugh ironically and leads them to take part in making fun of the President. In fact, many listeners composed parody songs to make a fool of the President. These were inserted into the episode of Naggomsu as if they were the commercial breaking into a radio show. Naggomsu’s satire is one of rhetorical elements that enable the listeners to participate in the program. This is very important rhetorically because it teaches the audience how to use the rhetorical tool of irony to express their dissatisfaction. This also means that the hosts succeeded knowing how their audience could be persuaded to be openly critical of political issues.

             By positioning on one-side of the argument, Naggomsu was a target of criticism from the traditional media. The main reason why critics had negative view is that Naggomsu did not follow fairness, which is a basic value for media to keep. One blogger pointed out some of the problems Naggomsu had:

The show consists of 70 percent of truth, 20 percent of rational conjecture (analysis) and 10 percent of incorrect information. If you are somebody who is able to filter out messages in mainstream newspaper reports, you can fully enjoy the show and get new information from it. [...] But while they mock the conservative and president's camps, they go easy on liberal camps. Especially, Kim Ou-joon (the leader of the show) is seeing everything in black and white. (Yoo-eun Lee, emphasis added)

 

However, Naggomsu’s partiality is one of driving forces that constitute a collective identity of young people. The young people who hated politics could develop interests in politics because its partiality led them to stand on its side.

             Naggomsu stopped podcasting in 2012 as it had already promised that it would air only until President Lee’s term was over. It went viral in South Korea. It showed unique features as a political podcast. Contrary to expectations, other political podcasts having the same format as Naggomsu have not been released since it ended. However, political podcast programs dealing with sensitive political issues keep increasing since Naggomsu. Also, each host now runs his own political podcast and they are still positioned as very popular podcast programs.  

 

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