Sport celebrity in South Korea: Park, Tae-Hwan from new generation to fallen angel

This study examines the process of how an athlete is constructed as a national celebrity in South Korea through media discourses both online and offline. To this end, the paper explores the media discourses around Park Tae-Hwan, a South Korean swimmer and superstar, and suggests three distinct and related dimensions that have constructed him as a national celebrity. These three dimensions are a new generation, a national and regional celebrity and a fallen (national) angel. The analysis of the discourses on Park demonstrates both the inseparable relationship between the media and sport celebrity and the complex, contradictory roles of sport celebrity vis-à-vis national, regional and global sensibilities in South Korea. Ultimately, the construction of Park as national celebrity reveals a key structure of feeling in South Korea in which nationalist sentiment, regional rivalry and global desire not only converge but also compete against each other.