Broadcasting major league baseball as a governmental instrument in South Korea

Abstract

This study investigates governmentality in the relationships between local governments and global sports by examining the contexts of broadcasting Major League Baseball (MLB) in South Korea. Compared to how the Korean Baseball League (KBO) was used in the 1980s to divert public interest from political issues and encourage state nationalism, the sensational popularity of MLB in the 1990s helped construct alternative governmentality during the International Monetary Fund intervention. This new governmentality not only legitimated global competition but also emphasized responsible individuals and a new kind of citizen. Rather than arguing either total failure or success of the governmentality of the 1990s, this study suggests that individuated nationalism was its consequence, meaning that most Koreans remained deeply involved with nationalistic discourse but responded to it in different and diverse ways. © 2008 Sage Publications.