The Meaning of Aging in an Era of Globalization

• In Event: Global/Regional Media Flows and Citizen Health and Identity

Abstract

This paper investigates how globalizing forces have influenced the landscape of the labor market and the construction of social identity in East Asian societies. During the early 2010s, the growing popularity of double-jaw surgery in Korean society indicates that the economic system and labor policy under neoliberalism force the Korean public to promote self-improvement through undergoing anti-aging surgical procedures. Through a discourse analysis, this paper addresses how media coverage of double jaw surgery reinforces the myth of manufacturing youthfulness and intensifies ageism in Korean society. This paper also articulates how celebrities take an important role in the creation of the new phenomenon, how Korean cultural content has helped transnationalize the double-jaw surgery to East Asian countries, and as a result, has restructured social identity based on their manufactured appearances.

Author

• Ju Oak Kim, Temple University