As Kim mentioned, before high-speed Internet popularized digital music and online music video, television in South Korean was the central media platform for pop music consumption (Kim 2018,53). However, I argue that TV still plays a vital role in the spread and development of contemporary Korean popular culture through music television program broadcasts.
Through the TV, music television program broadcasts such as The Show use exciting stage performances to stimulate people’s nerves from both perspective and listening. TV music shows seem to be a fortune for hardcore music lovers, who not only like to “listen” but also “watch” the performances of their favourite singers (Kim 2018,58). When promoting new songs and albums, most Korean idols attach great importance to such TV shows, especially new groups because they need this exposure to let the audience know and recognize themselves.
Moreover，Asia’s largest entertainment companies, S.M, YG, and JYP, can continuously deliver fresh blood to the entertainment market. The entertainment companies and TV stations have formed a good supply and demand relationship so that the two sides can achieve mutual benefit and win-win situations. Therefore, each TV station has accumulated a large amount of workforce and resources to build its programs to promote entertainment companies and idols to maximize the economic benefits. South Korea is a country that regards the music industry as a national pillar industry. There are a large number of professional music websites such as Mnet, Melon, Genie, and Bugs. In South Korea, downloading songs in a regular music website is not free. A large percentage of the scoring rule of music television program broadcasts is based on the sales of records to stimulate consumers to purchase. As a result, according to IFPI (2015), although the total size of the global music market declined slightly by 0.4% in 2014, the growth rate of the Korean music industry is still the highest in the world (19.2%)（Cho, Lee, Yoo and Chu 2018,13）.
Furthermore, this kind of music television program broadcasts can be conducive to the development of overseas markets. For example, to attract a more significant international market, the famous entertainment company, Mnet Media has made global fans voting, and the number of hits of the official MVs on YouTube has become an essential part of their scoring roles. This kind of approach can provide foreign fans with a convenient opportunity to support their idols using their actions, significantly increasing the interaction between Korean idols and overseas fans.
Overall，despite the high-speed Internet popularized digital music, and online music videos have been widely accepted and disseminated by the public, television still has a lot of influence on Kpop music spreading in the public domain.
Bibliography:
- Cho, Daegon, Seok Ho Lee, Yeawon Yoo, and Hyo-Youn Chu. “Television Singing Competitions Create Stars? Empirical Evidence from the Digital Music Chart in South Korea.” Journal of Cultural Economics, 2018. doi:10.1007/s10824-018-9327-3.
- Kim, Suk-Young.K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2018.
Hi Aijing,
The bibliography for the book is fine. For the article you have at least three problems that I can see, please review the Chicago guide and revise that one.
The essay is not horribly clear. The first paragraph is very long, and it’s hard to figure out what your argument is. I think if you break it up and clarify the argument (a sentence that says “I argue…” is always a good idea because it clarifies to you and to the reader what your main point is), you’ll find a few other things to fix while you’re at it and end up with a stronger essay.
After reading Aijing’s essay, I fully agreed that TV music program still play a big role in Kpop. I want to talk a little more about the program produced by the union of TV station and entertainment company as a supplement. As I noticed in my daily life, huge number of people love watching variety shows. The competitions, interaction, speeches provide much more entertaining elements compared to MV or songs. Thus, to drive more public attention to one’s work or make new stars popular, variety shows are efficient ways. I do know of some variety shows which are so popular that can lead the trend— — produce 101(프로듀스 101) and I am a singer(나는 가수다). These variety shows provide more realistic aspects of the idols, thus they may even have the ability to ensure the longitivity of fans’ love. These shows can be seen as great examples of success of TV music program compared to other media.
Although I do believe TV still have a quite important role in popular culture, the population who prefer shift power devices is definitely much huger. The TV program shows as I mentioned above, can also be easily found on YouTube through smartphones or laptops. One important fact is that watching TV is no longer convient as we have so many choices. TV is connected by cable and fixed in a position while you can use your smartphones wherever you want. Another thing is that TV show program do have time lag compared to other social media. The shows are prior filmed, sometimes news exposed on the Internet might cause the show to lose its actual effectiveness. And the Internet, is always the latest.
TV is definitely an important source of media for the Korean pop music industry to allow local residents to enjoy the excitement of the pop culture. And I do agree with AIJING ZHANG that the TV broadcast allows the performer to be memorable by both their voice and their attractive appearances. However, in my opinion, with the advancement of technology and the emerging of various social media platforms such as Youtube and Instagram, TV is slowly losing its importance as the tool to spread the awareness of the K-pop culture. First of all, unlike the elder generations who relied on TV as their major source of entertainment, most of the younger generations were grown up surrounded by all sorts of technologies or smart devices. TV broadcast usually has a fixed timetable for the TV programs, and the audiences have to bear with all the annoying commercials between the programs. Especially for the busy young working professionals, time is the money for them, and they do not have the free time to sit in front of the TV and spend time watching their favorite Kpop show. The time flexibility and the accurate delivery of contents become a critical factor for the media platform to win audiences. In this case, new types of social media including youtube and Instagram targeted the pain point of the young busy pros, and provide a novel and a more convenient way for the people to gain access to the pop culture, it allows people to browse desired videos or TV programs anywhere and anytime they want. Moreover, only the domestic audiences have the capability to receive the TV broadcast since the signals usually do not go past the border, which largely limits the potential for exporting the local contents. On the other hand, the internet connects the international audiences with the Korean pop culture and enables anyone who has access to the internet to effortlessly browse their favorite Kpop stars or to try to learn more about this culture, thus significantly boosts the spread of the K-pop culture.
I think Stephan came up with a great idea of time flexibility. Considering my own consumption of TV, I believe it is a very important point. Another thing is that If you are interested in particular person in the TV show programs or specific songs, you search it using YouTube, you can watch the specific segments. However, the television station has its own fixed time schedule and modules, we are forced to watch the whole show and losing the power of speeding or pause. Sometimes I find it quite annoying. This is an important reason that I do not choose TV.
It is true that nowadays there are more and more diverse social media, young generation tend to prefer using media such as YouTube. It is more cheaper and easy to access for the fans of K-pop, we can create our own music video playlist, see different choreography with less barriers. Comparing to use the television, it is more convenient, you can use your phone, iPad, computer to access easily. But on the other side, television is still a major way for people especially in Korea getting exposure to popular culture. There are people who are in the generation that they are used to watching television and it becomes a part of their life. Watching television can be very different than watching music videos online. Sometimes you can learn something that is random, and it makes you interested in. It creates a more diverse environment, for example, if you like the group girl’s generation, when you go to google or YouTube, basically you will only look up their information. But using television, it gives you different information on different groups. You may see another group’s performance and really start liking it. Television also let you become curiosity and use a lot of imagination, therefore you look forward to next episode, most shows update each week, and this could create excitement. For some tv shows, it also creates interaction with people such as voting and phone in. So, television is still a good way and it is a market that should not be forgotten. The companies such as JYP, SM entertainment and YG also sending their idols from group to perform across different genres and platforms such as on television shows. A great example could be produce 101, that it calls the audience producers who can decide which trainee can be in the final debuted group. Basically, audiences could feel a sense of participation in the show and they are involving and deciding. We can not ignore television’s power because it has a huge market. Television is a media or market is not only relaxation, it is also where we find our curiosity and learn from it.
The television has the irreplaceable role in our daily consumptions and the perception of popular culture. Although many different media that are accessible to us, the television is still important to our consumption. Personal computers and smartphones are other media that we often use, and the high-speed Internet provides us loads of information, and even some of them are recommended automatically according to links we used to click. Then, we get the newest information from computers and smartphones. However, they cannot replace televisions. Firstly, there are several TV shows popping up nowadays in Korea, such as Hidden Singers and Show Me the Money. Although we can always watch TV shows from the Internet, people enjoy sitting around and watch TV by the big screen rather than a small computer screen or smartphone screen, because people can communicate better in a comfortable way and express their opinions. So television has an important influence on people’s social life. Secondly, we are used to watching TV as a way of entertainment in our daily life. According to a research, people increase the time they spend on the computer because there are more and more work depending on the computer nowadays but they do not decrease the time they spend on the television, because they are more feel like working or studying when using the computer and entertaining when watching the television. Therefore, once there are any k-pop TV shows or advertisements on the TV, people are willing to accept and enjoy shows. Television becomes a way of spreading Korean culture. The younger generations are less willing to read than the older generation because reading is time-consuming, so the book is a less effective way to spread Korean culture. The young generation can know what is happening in the world and other people’ thoughts from the news, and the television is a good tool to spread news quickly to the young. Then the junior builds up their perception by receiving news every day from the television. What is on the television is effective to the young people. If the news is more about the Korean culture, the junior knows more about their own culture, which is important for the country to spread their spirits to the next generation.
As members of the younger generation and the most frequent users of internet and many associated online platforms, we often neglect the existing power of television among older generations. It is without a doubt still a very powerful and influential platform especially for KPOP artists nowadays to promote their new comeback music or roles in dramas. As mentioned in your discussion, music broadcasting shows still maintain a great audience and a great supply of artists willing to participate, which has perpetuated the success of television in affecting the dissemination of popular culture. Other than the promoting effort of artists aided by the presence of television broadcasting, television as a platform of popular media consumption among the older generation also serves as a discovering opportunity. Parents or even grandparents of the younger generation are able to be exposed to many shows that are popular nowadays among younger generations if the show is also broadcasted on television. This may have potential significance for artists involved in the shows if they are wanting to reach a more varied audience. Potential popularity and attention from people who regularly watch television and use it as a media consumption platform definitely adds to the artists’ financial gains because within the business to business model, advertising companies and social media sites favor artists with large influences. Despites the rapid growth of the internet and many online social media platforms, television is still an agent in popular culture dissemination which can benefit both production companies and the artists because it tends to target a different group of audience than that of online media platforms. It also has a great significance for the spread of music because many of the now popular music shows are live broadcasting shows aired on television, which often lure audiences with their liveness of performance and the feeling of involvement especially for shows requiring audience voting. Therefore, while digital records and online shows become increasingly popular among younger generations, television offers older consumers a chance to be exposed to the same kind of popular culture and such exposition bridges different generations together and form a more holistic and diverse audience.