| Ideological shift or struggle over representations in television dramas may not be one dimensional but rather it becomes an active process of negotiation that challenges or transforms dominant ideologies with the changing discursive contexts. In this regard, ideological analysis must be examined not only through the ideological content underlying media text, but also through the ways in which particular systems of representations are produced.;The major purpose of this study is to explore how ideological representations of gender in Korean television dramas have been conveyed and how they have been changed in different dramas across different periods and finally, how these representations are interwoven within social, political, and cultural contexts of the periods. In order to accomplish this task, this study combines ideological analysis with textual analysis of structuralist and semiotic tradition. Especially, it analyses visual encoding patterns, symbolic contents, camera techniques, characters, themes and narratives in a text.;The results of this study suggest that ideological representations of Korean women in television drama have been changed across different periods by the structural encoding patterns such as camera techniques, characters, themes and narrative. They are closely related to women's rights movements and government policies such as the activities of women's organizations and demands of reforms of law about equality of women. All three episodes also showed two distinguishable types of Korean men and women signified by "Confucianism" and "Feminism." They have not been wiped out completely, but mere overlaid by the changing representations of men and women. The analysis of themes revealed that there has been a shift in the representations of women from traditional to the modern women. It implies that an emergent ideological schema has slowly legitimated the notion of modern Korean women. This study suggests that the fact that dominant ideology in television drama can be changed leads to an optimistic picture for social change in the Korean society. |
