Have You Seen the 'Busan Is Great' Busan City Administration Newsletter?... Major Overhaul for the New Year

Published Once a Month with 32 Pages,
Strengthening Empathy Content

The newsletter announcing Busan city administration, ‘Busan Ira Johta’ (Busan is Good), will take on a new look in the new year and come closer to the citizens.

Busan City (Mayor Park Hyung-jun) announced on the 16th that it has begun a major overhaul to innovate the publication system of the Busan city newsletter and expand citizen empathy and participation content in order to deliver more vivid and substantial news.

First, starting this year, the publication frequency will change from twice a month (24 pages on the 1st, 16 pages on the 16th) to once a month (32 pages).

With monthly publication, the city plans to strengthen and expand in-depth planning on city administration, local community issues, and interests, as well as citizen empathy content to more faithfully reflect citizens’ voices. To spread the citizen consensus on ‘Citizen Happiness and Global Hub City,’ the newsletter will enhance communication across generations through citizen-tailored page composition and active participation.

Additionally, to help citizens understand and participate in city administration more familiarly, special feature articles will be newly established, and annual planned reports will be expanded, bringing innovation to the page layout.

To provide a deep and comprehensive understanding of the latest local community issues and key policies at a glance, a new ‘Cover Story’ page will be introduced to help citizens better understand city administration. Photos and infographics will be enhanced to deliver content more richly and attractively, allowing various information to be visually grasped at a glance.

The annual planned series ‘Busan’s Economic Map is Changing!’ will examine the current status of the rapidly reorganizing local industrial system centered on new industries such as secondary batteries, considered future food sources in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution, and explore the revolutionary changes in traditional manufacturing industries undergoing digitalization using advanced technologies like AI and robotics.

Since the National Sports Festival and the Para Games will be held in Busan this year, related pages for activating citizen participation and focused promotion will be made permanent, and various contents to promote citizens’ recreational sports will be introduced.

Generational empathy content has also been expanded, including ▲‘Busan Vibe’ (interviews with various people around Busan), ▲“Senior, how do I get into that company?” (introducing companies where young people want to work and success stories of employment), and ▲‘Active Senior’ (introducing active and creative seniors and organizations).

Nam Jung-hoon, who served as the general director of the Busan Webtoon Festival, will draw ▲‘Busan Hot Place Hidden Picture Hunt’ and a new corner ‘Let’s Live Healthily,’ which provides health information and dementia prevention quizzes for the elderly (silver generation), offering various enjoyable content and information.

Busan City published the newly revamped Busan city newsletter ‘Busan Ira Johta’ January issue on January 2. To enable more citizens, including the visually impaired and information-disadvantaged groups, to easily access Busan news, Braille books and audio books containing the contents of the Busan city newsletter have been published, and an online service ‘Reading Busan City Newsletter’ will start from the 20th.

The Braille books and audio books published by the city for the visually impaired contain more than 90% of the newsletter content based on the Busan city newsletter. A total of 1,200 copies are published monthly, including 400 Braille books and 800 audio books, which are distributed to national Braille libraries, the Federation of the Visually Impaired, welfare centers, and visually impaired individuals. They can be viewed at the Sasang-gu Busan Braille Library, and subscriptions can be applied for by phone and approved after screening.

Busan City is expanding various communication channels so that all citizens, including information-disadvantaged groups, can conveniently access news related to city administration and the local area. From the 20th, anyone can listen for free by searching ‘Busan City Newsletter’ on Naver Audio Clip or through the Busan city newsletter website.

In addition, foreign language content services will be improved to promote the ‘Global Hub City’ and strengthen global communication. The English newspaper ‘Busan is Good,’ which provides useful information for foreign residents and overseas tourists, is delivering useful information to foreigners by discovering new tourism content and serializing cultural life-related planning series.

Busan City’s internet English news ‘Daily Busan’ delivers timely news helpful to foreign residents, such as local event announcements and recruitment. The existing Japanese and Chinese newspapers have been converted to ‘Internet Foreign Language News’ services to enhance timeliness, breaking news, and reader accessibility.

Park Kwang-myung, spokesperson for Busan City, said, “With the reorganization of the Busan city newsletter, we hope to get closer to citizens and communicate so that many citizens can take time to think about and reflect on major issues in the local community together.” He added, “We will devote efforts to realizing empathetic city administration through continuous development of tailored content by generation and operation of various channels.”