White Paper Project

The White Paper Project is a 133-paged paper explaining and contextualising a controversy around BTS, a massively popular K-Pop group. It was published a month after the controversy and revised with feedback a week later. On the White Paper Project website, translations in both English and Korean are available. 
==Contents of the Paper==
As caveated in the introduction, the White Paper Project does not aim to cover the entire issue, but to illuminate misinformation and disinformation around BTS as well as provide historical context around some of the Korean opinions regarding the T-Shirt. In the introduction, they state their goal for the project was to "show that there was more to the story than was being reported. We wanted to show that the skewed reporting by the media and perceptions by some members of the public erased Korean experiences of history. We wanted to show that the SWC's statement was problematic. We all wanted to do something."
The paper begins with a foreword and introduction of the project and its goals and contents. The following section(2.Overview of Recent Events) covers the timeline of events, from a cancelled appearance on Japan's popular Music Station program to the surfacing of other controversial images and recent events in Korea-Japan relations. The subsections after summarize the criticisms against BTS during the controversy and provide additional context and summarizes the media coverage on the issue. The paper covers its extensive coverage in Korea where media outlets across the political spectrum were supportive of BTS, as well as its coverage in Japan, where Japanese media focused particularly on whether BTS would still appear on Kohaku Uta Gassen and discontent. It also covers the international news coverage, beginning with the AP news article published on November 9 with limited context that shared the Japanese media interpretation based on the Music Station statement when they cancelled the BTS appearance, followed by the SWC statement, the Big Hit statement, and even more opinion and news pieces.
After the comprehensive coverage of the surrounding events, in the third section(3.Historical Context) the paper attempts to address why these events occurred. It outlines Korean colonial history from 1900 to the present, followed by sharing more on the Korean interpretation of the Korean-Japan historical relationship, which is that Japan practices historical revisionism which the West has enabled. The White Paper Project authors then summarize how other Korean groups have been affected by anti-Korea sentiment in Japan and highlight the October 30 law case by the Korean Supreme Corp ruling that the Japanese company Nippon Steel and Sumimoto Metal Corp should pay 100 million won to each of 4 men who were forced laborers during WW11 as an explanation for why the screenshot of Jimin's shirt became such a big controversy.
In section 4, Fandom Response, the project authors summarise the views seen by K-ARMY, J-ARMY, and I-ARMY (international army). It also provides context on the different landscape between these three different groups of fans and their differences. The subsections of this section are titled after their responses: "K-ARMYs Responses and Frustrations: To Clarify and Defend", "I-ARMYs' Responses and Frustrations: To Rally and Learn", "J-Army's Responses and Frustrations: To Support and Learn". (The J-Army's section was added later, due to being unable to find perspectives from them during creation, and later J-ARMY's reaching out to the team after reading the paper to write that section from their perspective).
The final sections are 5.Closing Remarks, 6.References, and 7.Appendix (including an authors note on the changes since version 1, big hit's statement, korean media coverage and recommended resources).
==Messages from the Creators==
==Academic Reactions==
==Fan Reactions==
==References==
Category:BTS
Category:2018 Academic Commentary