How media reported on Korean wave?: Focusing on the analysis of news coverage of Republic of Korea

ABSTRACT

This study examined the recent issue and perception towards Korean wave on media coverage in Republic of Korea. Korean wave (Hallyu) that refers to a preference of Korean cultural contents, including drama, movie, and music, has been expanded throughout several regions initiated from Asian countries. In order to understand the global cultural phenomenon in a changing media environment, it is necessary to continuously review issues and changes of Korean wave. To investigate recent perception on the media, news data regarding Korean wave were analyzed by applying text-mining. Results showed that issues of news of Korean wave changed according to the social circumstances. For instance, the issue of favoured cultural contents, such as Korean idol “BTS” and the movie “Parasite,” appeared as associated words. In 2020, it was found that COVID-19 was one of the frequently mentioned words related to Korean wave. This paper provides the recent case of cultural phenomenon using quantitative method.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural communication
• Korean wave
• Republic of Korea
• news coverage
• text-mining

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Acknowledgement: I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Seoul National University Stastical Research Institute.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yoora Oh

Dr. Yoora, Oh is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, The University of Tokyo.