Research topic & comments on the reading

 

Cultural discount revisited: K-pop and Western audiences

   With the advent of globalization in 1990s and with the development of information and communications technology, transnational media cultural flow has never been as dynamic as nowadays. These dramatic shifts have posed the legitimacy about the supremacy of American media cultures and the continuing plausibility of Western-centric cultural domination across the world (Iwabuchi, 2010). It requires us to look at the realm of transnational media culture from a new perspective; since for decades an uncritical application of theories has been derived from Euro-American experiences to the non-Western contexts and processes under the study of media and cultural globalization.

   East Asia is one of the key regions in which these alternative cultural expressions flourish. Scholars have examined the dynamics of the production, circulation and consumption of media cultures in East Asia in the realm of globalization. In the midst of this phenomenon, the rise of South Korea’s popular culture and the spread of its highly favored media content across the globe (known as Korean Wave) provide an interesting case study to delve into.

   Since the early 2000s, K-pop and its videos have been well recognized by global fans through their skillfully hybridized form. K-pop artists create a new transnational Asian identity across borders in the 21^st century on the global stage (Ryoo, 2009). As the Korean rapper Psy’s viral music video Gangnam Style has shown, the popularity of K-pop now goes beyond nation-state boundaries, circulated on the Internet space without borders (Kim, 2011). K-pop is a dance-driven performance that often emphasizes performers’ physical attractiveness and virtuosity. It is a visual consumption that sells overall images and performances, not necessarily lyrics per se (Leung, 2012).

   Previous studies on K-pop were largely applied to K-pop fandom and fans’ identity formation in the Asia-pacific region. These studies, however, fail to examine the significance of Western fandom as the phenomenon of Korean Wave starts to reach the West; one good evidence is that the Billboard now provides K-pop section on its own (www.billboard.com). Close readings of Western audiences’ reactions and comments on K-pop videos allows us to interrogate whether cultural imperialism, which has been symbolized as a one-way flow of cultural products from Western countries to developing countries (Jin, 2007) is still a reliable theory in today’s globalization era.  

   This study, therefore, attempts to examine media culture from a reversed perspective and challenge Hoskins and Mirus’ theoretical concept of cultural discount. By conducting close readings of self-filmed reaction to K-pop music videos and analyzing online users’ comments on YouTube, this study aims to explore what it means to consume K-pop for Western audiences, and why and how their consumptions and interpretations of K-pop matter in international context.

   The reading of K-pop video texts is mediated by audiences’ incorporation into active oral cultures (Fiske, 1987) by active discussion and interaction among other viewers to create meanings (Katz & Liebes, 1984). Through self-filming K-pop reaction videos, fans—as ardent audiences—express their emotions and thoughts. Through interacting with others via comments on YouTube, fans—as active audience—share and practice a pleasurable aspect of democracy. Western audiences, as active audiences, take active role in interpreting and enjoying transnational media content on their own term, and connect with others in online environment. The fans not only enjoy K-pop videos, but they also support each other and build close rapport with other fans via comments. How and why do fans self-film their reactions to videos? Why do these fans enthusiastically communicate with each other, leaving informing and supporting comments on one another’s posts? What does Western audiences’ attachment to K-pop music and videos mean in the domain of globalization? This study attempts to answer these questions.

   To explore this phenomenon, this study employs an interdisciplinary methodological approach, combining theories from media studies and cultural studies, in addition to thick descriptions of each video and comment. This study also employs online ethnography; from September 2015 to December 2015, I’ll regularly visit the YouTube pages where the videos are uploaded. I’ll observe fans’ comments and examine the ways in which they interact and communicate with the posters in online communities.

   In this article, K-pop fans refer to Western audiences. Fans’ linguistic and geographical associations inform the definition. In other words, this research identifies western K-pop fans as audiences who (1) use English as one of the languages they are most comfortable speaking and (2) likely live in countries in the West, or in a society under the influence of western culture. I’ll collect data and information about the fans by looking at each individual’s page and comment they had made. This includes fans’ visual confirmation, physical traits, profiles, pictures, names (or ID) and languages they use.

   By looking at the transnational media culture of K-pop, this article challenges Hoskins and Mirus’s theoretical concept of cultural discount and revisits Straubhaar’s theory of cultural proximity. This study suggests that although theoretical concept of cultural discount (Hoskins & Mirus, 1988) vividly exists among Western audiences for their consumptions and interpretations of K-pop, it faces serious challenges in explaining the K-pop phenomenon among Western audiences.

Theoretical background

Cultural hybridity (Kraidy), cultural proximity (Straubhaar), cultural discount (Hoskins & Mirus).

Methods

Online ethnography: textual analysis and thick description.

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   This week’s reading on “Capturing ‘human bandwidth’: A multidimensional model for measuring attention on web sites” by Zheng, Chyi and Kaufhold provides a new model for measuring users’ attention on the Internet. The article briefly mentions about the notion of “information surplus,” which I find fascinating; “because information has lost its scarcity on the Web, excessive information is available even at the price of zero, resulting in a media environment characterized by ‘information surplus’ (Chyi, 2009).” When there was no internet but only television and radio, scholars used the term “cognitive surplus (Shirky, 2010)” to refer to the leisured time people had in the beginning of industrialization. During that period, people had relatively more free time and attention surplus, thanks to all sorts of developments. They turned to (now-traditional) media to deal with their cognitive surplus.
   Now, with the Internet and new media, audiences are facing information surplus from cognitive surplus. Many media/advertising-related industries try hard to get audience’s attention in any way possible. For instance, I think the way news media write the headline has been drastically changed over time as a way to grab audience’s attention. In Korea, this happens a lot especially in the realm of online news sites. When online users click a news headline for its appealing and catchy words and find out the content of the news is not even relevant to the headline, Koreans use the term “be caught by a journalist.”