Gil-Soo Han

My disciplinary training is sociological, but I greatly appreciate anthropological and historical insights in my teaching and research. Throughout my academic career, my research “subjects”/participants have been from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people; or the disadvantaged, such as immigrants, overseas trained professionals, and rural population. In my research into these populations, there have been 3 key sources of evidence for analysis. They are:

• the study of participants' experiences;
• how they represent themselves in, or how they are represented by, the media; and
• how their life is enabled and restrained by socio-cultural/economic factors. This is reflected in my research publications where ethnic, local and national media representations are critical sources of empirical data.

Google Scholar Profile: Gil-Soo Han

Joining Monash Communications & Media Studies in 2008, I have continued my sociological insights and extended to the study of Communications & Media. I have well embraced the very broad definition of Communication which regards human relations and interactions as the product of how humans (un)successfully communicate with each other. For example, how immigrants are well integrated is a matter of how the host society and immigrants are willing to or (un)successfully communicate with each other.

Major monographs:

• Funeral Rites in Contemporary Korea: The business of death (2019, Springer)
  
• Nouveau-rich Nationalism and Multiculturalism in Korea: A media narrative analysis (2016, Routledge)
• Korean Diaspora and Media in Australia: In search of identities (2012, Univ Press of America)
• Health and Medicine under Capitalism: Korean immigrants in Australia (2000, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press)
• Social Sources of Church Growth: Korean Churches in the Homeland and Overseas (1994, Univ Press of America)
• Minorities and Media in Australia: Producers, Industries, Audiences (Co-Ed 2017, Palgrave).

My research impact and contributions beyond Communications & Media research, prior to and post 2008, is international and cumulative. I have been an invited panel speaker at national and international conferences. Of equal importance is my engagement with the Korean community in Australia where I am often invited to deliver lectures to the Korean community in Australia, speaking on topics of interest to the public, teachers, future leaders, the clergy etc.