Patterns of Censorship in Colonial Korea as Seen through the Statistics of the Chosen shuppan keisatsu geppo (Publication Police Monthly of Joseon)

Abstract

Through analyzing the five types of statistical data compiled in the Chosen shuppan keisatsu geppo (Publication Police Monthly of Joseon), this article explores the trends of Japanese colonial censorship and the intellectual and cultural landscape of colonial Korea. The censorship controls by the Publication Police were exercised intensively on Korean publications, especially Korean language newspapers such as Chosun Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo, as well as Korean-Chinese language newspapers like Minshengbao (Voice of the People) published in Manchuria. With respect to the latter group, the Publication Police was more concerned with suppressing the inflow of publications from Manchuria and China than from Japan at the outbreak of both the Manchurian Incident and later the Sino-Japanese War. This study finds that the effects of censorship controls resulted in severe obstruction of the growth of knowledge culture within the colony on the one hand, but on the other hand, greatly enhanced the cultural position of the metropole as a source of modern knowledge.