Introduction

Background and Objectives

Traditional Korean culture is a key part of the South Korean national brand. This can be seen in the popularity of historical dramas, high levels of tourism to places like Gyeongbokgung Palace, Gyeongju, and Insadong, and in the official promotion of hanbok (traditional Korean attire),hansik (traditional Korean food), hanok (traditional Korean houses) and more – both in Korea and abroad. Cultural heritages, tangible and intangible, are physical and experiential embodiments of this so-called “tradition,” and the South Korean government clearly them as assets; It has taken active effort to designate and preserve cultural heritages of various tangible and intangible types across the country, now totaling over 13,000 in number.

However, this promotion and preservation of “traditional” culture is not unproblematic. First, it raises questions of what can be considered tradition or heritage and who has the authority to make such a judgment. Second, unconscientious promotion of tradition and heritage can easily lead to a kind of consumerist commodification of culture which is misappropriated by the not-so-well intentioned and the not-so-well informed. This is evident in the recent boom of hanbok rental services which claim to provide “traditional Korean” attire without mention of the extreme Westernization of the outfits provided. It can be seen in historical dramas and real-life historical re-enactments, which “recreate history,” yet take substantial creative liberty in the name of entertainment – presenting an inaccurate telling of historical events and utilizing clothing, performances, and actions which are entirely out of context, etc. – without informing audiences of the liberties taken. It is also seen when information about the history of a heritage site, such as having been left in ruins for centuries and only recently rebuilt, is left out of information panels and during guided tours, thus giving audiences misleading impressions about the real age of a heritage.

When the goals become “promotion,” “entertainment,” or “consumption,” the truth – that tradition and heritage are things which are passed down, negotiated, and transformed over time by new generations of diverse people – becomes secondary to money and image. Theoretically, the point of educating citizens about tradition (or heritage) is so that they can come to see value of such tradition and continue to pass that value down to future generations in ways that take into consideration societal changes. But if audiences are continually fed bastardizations of “Korean tradition” without context, they are never given the chance to truly appreciate, learn about, or draw their own conclusions about that tradition and how they can incorporate it into their own lives, today. Therefore, providing the fullest possible context for any claims of “tradition,” as well as encouraging audiences to personally engage with and investigate that tradition, is essential if the objective is not just to make money or get people to believe some (potentially unverified) historical claims, but to actually instill an appreciation for traditional values in the hearts and minds of future generations.

This brings us to the idea of heritage interpretation. Heritage interpretation, which can take many forms and which will be discussed in greater detail in this thesis, plays the role of a bridge between mere consumption and the kind of informed curiosity that gets audiences to engage. As will also be demonstrated in this thesis, current Korean cultural heritage interpretation resources fail on various fronts to facilitate such an informed curiosity. At the core of this failure is the fact that those responsible for facilitating heritage interpretation – scholars, translators, museum/archive professionals, or civil officials at the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) or local governments – generally either 1) themselves do not know the full context and therefore cannot successfully provide this to the public, or 2) assume that heritage interpretation is a kind of one-time dictation of so-called “important facts” from experts to a passive, one-dimensional, ignorant public, thus forgetting about the larger purpose of heritage interpretation: to encourage the continued engagement of an active, diverse public so that a heritage or tradition gains personal and sustained value in the lives of said public.

This failure to provide opportunities for engagement is a not just a long-term problem facing the South Korean government. It affects the field of Korean studies, as well. Cultural heritages, while manifestations of and conduits for the passing-down of tradition, are wellsprings for the plethora of information which forms the foundation of Korean studies research – the humanities disciplines in particular. The very context mentioned above as necessary to paint the full picture of “tradition,” is filled with historical events, figures, places, concepts, documents, practices (i.e. handicraft, performance), and more etc., which have significance in the disciplines of history, art history, architecture, archeology, religion, literature, folk studies, musicology, anthropology, geography, and more. As such, cultural heritages are sites where those who have thus far only experienced Korea through consumption of modern, popular media such as that embodied by Hallyu, the Korean Wave, can be brought into the fold of Korean studies. Cultural heritages can be the bridge between the consumption of modern Korean culture and academic research on historical Korea. Therefore, it is of importance to all Korean studies scholars that effective ways to engage the public via heritage interpretation be researched.

Yet going forward with such research, we must not forget the time in which we are living. Hallyu itself was made possible by the Internet, which brought content to people around the globe, and allowed scattered fans to come together as creative and powerful communities. Much of the young generation around the world is comprised of digital natives, who are not satisfied with being passive consumers, but desire to be creators who make what they consume a meaningful part of their lifestyle and identity. Storage and access to information is no longer limited to physical and text mediums. Therefore, there is no need to limit heritage interpretation to old media and on-site means. In fact, limiting heritage interpretation in this way would be incredibly shortsighted. But we also must not be naïve enough to think that merely uploading old-media-form text to a webpage or digitizing heritage materials and throwing them into a digital archive fully capitalizes on the potential of the digital age to get the diverse and global public to engage. Heritage interpretation resources provided via digital means need to be tailorable and reusable by audiences as they engage in personal explorations through the heritage context. If Hallyu fans, historical drama production teams, Korean studies scholars, and others can access contextual information on heritages in a way which is targeted to their needs and interests, it can only serve to enrich the quality of education, research, and content creation relating to Korean history and traditional culture.

With this in mind, the primary objective of this thesis is to demonstrate how a graph database, among the various potential digital media, can serve as a solution to the current shortcomings of Korean cultural heritage interpretation, while also facilitating new functionalities which expand our understanding of interpretation from that of a top-down, one-directional education tool, to one of multi-purpose and multi-directional education, research, content creation, and self-directed learning. In order to develop such a database in a way which 1) accurately conveys the contextual information about Korean cultural heritages and 2) is an improvement on current interpretive resources, we first need a detailed understanding of what interpretive resources are currently available, what content they contain, the process by which they are created (and translated), and why these resources, content, and processes have come to be the way they are. We also need a way to judge these resources’ success in fulfilling their role as tools of heritage interpretation, so that we can identify places for improvement.

However, until now, there has been very little research on the current status of Korean cultural heritage interpretations, especially that which specifically identifies current weaknesses/limitations and the causes of such weaknesses/limitations. Therefore, in order to develop a meaningful ontology which would form the basis of a database, we must first investigate the current status of Korean cultural heritage interpretations, their strengths and weaknesses, and the root causes of said strengths and weaknesses.

Thus, by understanding current interpretive resources and developing an ontology to use in the implementation of data-based heritage interpretation, this thesis aims to serve as a contribution to the investigation of how we can make use of current and future technological capabilities to bridge the gap between the mere surface-level consumption of Korean history and traditional culture, and a more meaningful and sustained engagement with and understanding of that history and culture.

Methodology

To accomplish the objectives of this thesis, the following methods are employed. First, the meaning of heritage and heritage interpretation are understood based on a comprehensive review of definitions given by previous scholars and organizations. With these understandings in mind, five “ideals” of interpretation are generated from existing literature as a means of evaluating the extent to which an interpretive resource accomplishes the objectives of heritage interpretation and to serve as a guideline for the development of future heritage interpretation resources. The reason these ideals must be newly proposed in this thesis is that, although there are many existing definitions and principles for heritage interpretation, they are too narrow in scope (i.e. leaving out any possibility of digital approaches or only coming from a traditionalist perspective), or too general to be used as evaluative criteria (i.e. definitions along the lines of “heritage interpretation is a communicative process to educate people on the value of heritages”). Therefore, the many definitions, principles, and other key points are extracted from literature – both seminal and contemporary – on the topic of heritage interpretation, and key words and phrases which appear repeatedly in these definitions, etc., across the literature are identified and then grouped based on similarity. Ultimately, the key ideas which appeared throughout the literature are sortable into five categories: clear/accurate, personal/tailored, contextualized/holistic, facilitates engagement, and sustainable/innovative. After these ideals are presented, other key phrases relating to heritage interpretation which appear throughout the thesis are also defined for the sake of clarity.

Second, the current status of Korean cultural heritage interpretations is surveyed. This includes overviews of the available interpretive resources – including analog, digital (offline), digital (online), metadata, and the relationship between analog and online resources–, of the process of creating and translating interpretive resources – interpretive texts in particular – and the existing guidelines relating to them, and the nature of the content found in such interpretive texts. Third, current interpretations, as presented above, are evaluated via the ideals of heritage interpretation, including the ways in which they realize the ideals, the ways in which they fall short, the reasons for these shortcomings, and suggestions for changes which need to be made to better meet each ideal.

Fourth, the potential of data-based interpretation as an answer to the shortcomings of current Korean cultural heritage interpretation is explored. The possibilities of databases, distinct from digital technology or the Internet in general, are explained, with a focus on the unique capabilities of graph databases in particular. The concept of an ontology, which is how information, in this case Korean cultural heritage interpretive information, is organized so that it can be turned into graph data, is introduced. Then, the varied potential of graph databases as an answer to the limitations of current interpretations are presented in terms of the five ideals of interpretation. Throughout these first four sections, prior research, case studies demonstrative of various phenomena, and a systematic survey of resources are all utilized as research methods.

Fifth, an ontology is presented which describes interpretive information of on-site cultural heritages so that it can be applied to a graph database. On-site cultural heritages are chosen because they represent a diverse range of information on cultural heritages and also because they are the responsibility of local governments which most lack institutional resources to effectively develop interpretive resources. The ontology is based on the review of the content of interpretive texts presented in Section II in the thesis, along with a review of existing ontologies relating to cultural heritages. The strategy for the design of the ontology - which accounts for addressing the current limitations of Korean cultural heritage interpretation and the potential of the ideals of interpretation – is presented, along with the ontology relationships themselves.

Finally, using this ontology, various examples are shown which demonstrate the effectiveness of a data-based approach to solving current shortcomings of interpretation and better meeting the five ideals of interpretation. The examples are visualized with the graph database visualization software Neo4J.

In summary, this thesis reviews existing Korean cultural heritage interpretation resources and practices, the possibilities of data-based interpretation, and the ontology presented in this thesis based on five evaluative ideals developed from a review of the prior literature on heritage interpretation.