Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper is to review the popular magazine Huimang(Hope) to analyze its articles on figures, interviews, columns, and interpersonal skills so as to explore the narratives of individuals in the 1950s. This analysis is expected to reveal the specific outline at the point where the then popular narratives and state narratives joined together. The analysis revealed the following features: First, the articles on figures decreased the general success stories and the stories of overcoming difficulties significantly. Second, the narratives of individuals focused on the stories of company employees which were newly emphasized and accounted for most of the articles. Third, as a representative example of the story of company employees, 「5-Minute Interview」 serial articles revealed the following thing: Overall, diverse jobs appeared, but most of them were commoners' jobs/labor, and they included even despised jobs/labor. Interviewees explained their lives and emphasized ethics of job/ethics of labor. Their common key values included patience, dedication, vocation and sense of mission. Thus, regardless of individuals' success, labor itself was highlighted as positive. Such an attitude was the internalization of a kind of ascetic resignation and abstinence, and had the same context as the Western view of vocational job. In that new way, the magazine Huimang(Hope) defined individuals in the 1950s. In the narratives of diverse professional workers, the prototype of the non-subjective and involuntary working man was formed. In the process of modernization before and after Korean War, the popular magazine thus explored the origin of deploying and defining professional workers/laborers. Furthermore, individuals as laboring humans continued to embrace the economic development-friendly values in the capitalist/industrial society, such as frugality, sincerity, patience/self-determination, dedication, and sense of duty, and they were praised as industrial warriors in the 1960s to 1970s.