독서시장 소비자의 욕망과 체제 선전 피계몽자의 논리 - 남북한 문예지 독자란의 역사적 변화 비교

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare and analyze the ‘readers’ in the literary field of South Korea and North Korean literature and their social status by taking the conceptual his-toric approach. To examine the history division in connection with the concept of readers, we conducted a comparative analysis of readers’ column(readers’ contribution) in the leading literary magazines such as Joseon Literature, The Contemporary Literature(Hyundaemunhak), Creation and Criticism(Changjakgwabipyeong). The expected hypothesis was that the South Korean readers had the desire to acquire the information and general knowledge as consumers in the reading market while the North Korean readers learned the underlying logics of trainees for propaganda and en-lightenment of political system. This hypothesis was found to be only half correct based on diachronic and synchronic comparison of readers’ columns in the literary magazines of South Korea and North Korea. The hypothesis was turned out to be true that the readers’ characteristics of the enlightened and consumers who intended to accept the intention of authors through literary works. Meanwhile, readers were found to play a dynamic role as another subject of the liter-ature field based on the theory of authors and literary criticism although it may reflect the media characteristics of readers’ columns in literary magazines. Regardless of the differ-ence in the system between the two Koreas, elite readers have been often elevated to the status equivalent to that of author or editor or the status of subject in the literature field as the leading critics or active consumers. As the boundary between readers and authors has been crumbled down in the era where analog and digital civilizations coexist, there has been a rapid disappearance of common ground on which the status of readers could be compared from the standpoint of Korean Peninsula.