Olympics and its impact on sport and society in Korea

Abstract

This paper attempts to figure out the influence of Olympics upon sport and society in Korea. For this study, the sociologically emerging assumption - sport as a mechanism or an agency for social changes is considered as a theoretical and philosophical background rather than the traditional passive one - sport as a reflection of society or a mirror of society: Sport has a dynamic power to change the existing social order and envision a new society. That is, this paper recognizes that even if society has largely influenced sports, the autonomy of sport works for societal changes and serves as a site for political changes such as women`s liberation and ideological struggles. And it argues that the interactions between sport and society have not been unidirectional but reciprocal. The document study is employed to investigate what has been socially changed since 1988 and to find the big differences in social and sporting dimensions between the era of pre-1988 Olympics and the era of post-1988 Olympics. The result shows that the 1988 Seoul Olympics functioned as a great momentum for social changes including sports fields. Korean society started its globalization in terms of international politics: Korea concluded many diplomatic agreements with the Eastern countries and increased the relations with the 3rd world countries; people`s consciousness of the cold-war ideology was also getting weaker and weaker. Korean people were strongly enough to have the national dignity and pride as the result from the successful outcome of 1988 Olympics so their nationalistic orientation was newly developed. In sports fields, sport for all area which had been neglected got a high attention from governmental sport policy. The 5 year-master plan of national sport promotion was launched in 1993 to develop not only elite sports but also sport for all areas. The successful host of a mega sport event like the Olympics stimulated the importance of sport industry and business as well as sport diplomacy. International sport exchanges have been greatly increased and international status of Korean sport has been strongly upgraded so Korea has become one of the sport power countries around the world. Finally, the good experience from the 1988 Olympics pushed another host of the mega events like 2002 FIFA Worldcup and put an emphasis on a biding for 2014 Winter Olympics. The Olympics, in Korea, have changed a lot in positive ways and will change a lot in desirable ways.