한국 프로야구의 문화기호학적 연구

Abstract

If professional baseball is one of the significant cultural phenomena that require academic analyses, the application of methodology to approach this is an urgent task. This study approaches the cultural dynamics of professional baseball in Korea from a cultural semiotic perspective. Cultural semiotics is a meaningful methodology that provides an in-depth approach to how a cultural phenomenon is consumed and shared in society. Until now, Korean professional baseball has relied too much on the ‘3S policy’ for its interpretation framework. However, consumers of professional baseball have not accepted passively the signs of the military regime, but they have adjusted and resolved the situation, thereby they creating their own culture. For instance, the shouts of "Ma!” by the Lotte Giants’ supporters, which is one of the unique aspects of Korean professional baseball cheering culture, became a sign by itself and conveys many messages. These messages can be analyzed in more depth through a new academic methodology called cultural semiotics and not through the existing sociological methodologies. This study examined how cultural semiotics explains the characteristics of Korean professional baseball by ‘binary opposition’ and ‘narrative’ after explaining the key concepts of semiotics in an easy way. This attempt will be a significant challenge to expand the scope of sports philosophy.