The Internet as a facilitator of cultural hybridization and interpersonal relationship management for Asian international students in South Korea

Abstract

This study suggests that Internet-mediated communication played an important role for Asian international students in South Korea in maintaining and strengthening tightly knit, emotionally close relationships such as family and close friends. Alternatively, Internet-mediated communication allowed these students to make connections with members of the same ethnic groups in South Korea as well as South Korean students; however, the main goal of these new connections was to gain informational resources. Interview data disclosed that Asian international students maintained a transcultural space in the online world. Because the Internet is an open space, the respondents had navigated among numerous South Korean sites before arriving in South Korea and had become regular consumers of contents on some of those sites. They simultaneously continued to use their home country-based sites for entertaining and informational content. Three interrelated characteristics of the Internet consumption emerged from the interview data: (1) the respondents’ Internet consumption pattern did not change significantly before and after their arrival in South Korea; (2) the Hallyu phenomenon was evident; and (3) the respondents’ Internet consumption was not based on the criteria, such as country of origin, but on their personal interests. The Internet has become the hybridized space where, without synthesizing differences, these students could manage complex interactions of cultural norms and values between their home countries and the host country, and could carry out an uninhibited cultural navigation amid the distinct yet connected zones.

Keywords:

• Internet
• hybridization
• international students
• South Korea
• social capital

Notes

1. Source: The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology's Annual Report of Education Statistics.

2. As of 2007, Chinese accounted for 68.3% of international students in South Korea. Source: The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology's Annual Report of Education Statistics

3. Airing of popular South Korean TV dramas like Winter Sonata and the emergence of active fandom surrounding heroes and heroines boosted the impact of South Korean popular culture on the Japanese in early 2000s (Lee, 2005). A similar trend that involved TV dramas, music, movies, and other types of entertainment emerged in other Asian countries such as China, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.