Winning essay: 'In the OTT Era, Passive Characters and Network Narratology'

Critic Park In-seong. [Korean Literary Critics Association]
Critic Park In-seong. [Korean Literary Critics Association]

The Korean Literary Critics Association announced that critic Park In-seong has been selected as the recipient of the 27th Young Critics Award for 2026. The winning work is "In the OTT Era, Passive Characters and Network Narratology," published in the winter 2025 issue of Hyeondae Bipyeong, a literary criticism journal.

Park began his career as a critic after winning the spring literary contest of the Kyunghyang Shinmun in 2011. Focused on the real-world power of literature and culture to provoke concrete responses in readers, he has published essay collections including "This Is a Harmful Genre" and "Masterplot." He is known for his wide-ranging engagement with popular and subcultural forms — mystery, science fiction and gaming among them — and for his deep commitment to literature's connection to lived reality.

The winning essay examines the distinctive traits and significance of characters in an era when OTT platforms dominate narrative content. It pays particular attention to the "agent" role among the various functions a character can serve, arguing that the "passivity" visible in characters shaped by OTT media — which prioritizes immediate and efficient delivery — mirrors the pattern found in protagonists of recent Korean literary fiction. The essay further argues that such "passive character-protagonists" are better suited to exposing the system as the source of power, in a reality where "the system" operates as a form of networked authority.

The award ceremony is scheduled to be held at the College of Liberal Arts at Korea University on July 10.


pink@heraldcorp.com