South Korea popular music place an important role in their country, it also defines their identity in a way. The success of K-pop encouraged global appeal to South Korea (John, 2012). Therefore, Korean government intent to enhance their soft power by culture export, which is K-pop (John, 2012). However, Korean idols not only shoulder the responsibilities of keeping Korea’s international standing, but also are under the pressure from government, audience, media companies and advertisers of being nationalistic.
One way of Korean pop stars balancing the nationalism and still attracting international audience is that, they don’t show a clear political stand, especially on their international social media platform (like SNS/Instagram). The most commonly appeared in K-pop stars’ social media are: selfies, advertisement of new songs, video of dancing or singing, photos shot at work and so on, but nearly no comments like how they love their country. These daily life posts drag closer their distance with international audience. At the same time, people gradually forget and ignore the fact of nationalism.
Another way of balancing is that Korean stars express their nationalism in the form of advertisement, instead of giving extreme speech. For example, in psy’s music video ‘Korea’, they included a lot of Korean elements, like ancient Korean palace, traditional music and instruments, clothes Hanbok… so that it can attract foreigners to go to their country. This music video is an expression of nationalism, however, it still follows psy’s personal music style, and focused on spreading Korean culture. In another psy’s music ‘I LUV IT’, he widely used foreign elements to relate international audience. All these actions weakened audience’s impression of nationalism, people who dislike nationalism would not realize the nationalistic elements. Meanwhile, they earned good reputation and good impression in Korea.
As I noticed, a lot of Korean songs, especially by idols, have an international version. They sing the songs in a different language (English / Chinese / Japanese) and release in foreign country, they even make a different version of music video. A lot of the times, the international versions have slight changes from the original songs, sensitive lyrics or scenes could be replaced in case of causing discomfort of foreign audience. The lyrics may also be adjusted to cater local people. In addition, a big number of Korean idol groups contain foreign member, this is also a way of getting closer to them. It indicated that Korean pop stars can have a nationalistic image in Korean audience’s heart, but this image is not necessarily shown to international audience, or at least not as much.
Reference
Lie, John. “What is the K in K-pop? South Korean popular music, the culture industry, and national identity.” Korea Observer 43, no. 3 (2012): 339-363.
Ke Dai (#39328159)
I agree on the points that Ke Dai says about the topic of Korean idols balance the need to be nationalistic while still attracting international audience. Korean idols can balance the need by stay on the neutural side in politic. Korean idols do not prefer Korea or other counrties on the politic side. They do not speak about sensitive issues between countries. They should not post sensitive stuff on social media. For example, Tiffany in snsd. She posts a instrgram using the Japanese flag emoticon. The flag originally came into use during the war time between Japan and Korea. And She posts that instagram unconsciously on the eve of Korea’s celebration of the end of Japanese imperial rule. Many Koreans say she should qiut the korea music industry. Another example, Jay Park has been repatriated because he comment negatively on Korea. The things he said made a lot of people in South Korea upset. These are two bad example about Korean idols touch the sensitive side about the politics. They did not stay neutral about politics.Also, Korea idols can balance the need by make their songs both korean version and foreign language version. Korean version can satisfy the need of Korean audiences, government and media companies. They can put as much nationalistic elements as they want in their songs in Korean version. About the foreign language version, Korean idols can change the lyrics that is suitable for people outside the Korea. For example, Jay park’s song “All I Wanna Do”. It has English and Korean version. In Korea music industry, many groups they have international members. This is a good way to attract international audiences. The Korea music insustry in very open for selecting team members. For example, the group EXO has two branches. One is Exo-M, another is Exo-K. Exo-K’s group member is only Koreans. This group can satisfy the needs inside Korea. Another group Exo-M is made by international groups members and it can satisfy the neeeds outside Korea. These two different groups can balance the need to be nation nationalistic while still attracting international audiences who may dislike /react negatively to these nationalistic elements.
Lei Cao Student# 34327569
The ideas you’ve presented are a solid foundation to the ideology behind how the korean government and mainstream Media in Korea have displayed their nationalistic view through kpop, while maintaining an attractive relationship with international audiences. As you have noted above, songs in languages of respective international audiences, enable individuals foreign to korea to engage with the song. As a result, international audiences can connect with songs presented, and act as a gateway to widespread appreciation for korean music; more importantly, korean nationalism. In other words, utilizing international songs for respective audiences creates a level of engagement whom korean music becomes widespread enough to positively promote korea as a nation. To add to your idea, effective marketing through collaborations with international artists often increase acknowledgment of korean music, exposing their nationalistic views while avoiding obvious displays of nationalism through internationally recognizable collaborations. For instance, BTS’s recent collaboration with artists like nicki minaj and steve aoki organically promote korean music, and thus allows Korean mainstream media to display korean nationalism within music videos/lyrics while maintaining international appeal. Essentially, pushing korean nationalism without forcing political views on international audiences. Additionally, as you have revealed, kpop is a highly influential marketing strategy for promoting korean nationalism. Foreign audiences view Kpop as a positive medium of entertainment, and creates a positive perspective on Korea as a nation. This shapes korea as an appealing nation, thus making it much easier to communicate their nationalistic and political ideologies. This all ties into your idea that kpop is used as a medium to facilitate political and nationalistic views, and how the korean government and mainstream media companies in korea, subtly influence their views on foreign audiences by allowing kpop to represent their nationalistic ideas for them. Furthermore, controversies with Jay Park and Tiffany are a good example of how Korea attempts to withhold their nationalistic views and prevent negative perspectives of korea to spread. Korean audiences, governments, media companies will always attempt to cover up or conceal controversial topics to maintain their nationalistic values. Even if foreign nations perceive these nationalistic views as negative, Korea is still able to push them by continually pushing their most influential medium, KPop.
Flinton Yang #41403924
As Ke Dai said that K-pop Stars do not take a political stand when they face to international and Korean audiences, they will be accused by people because of their unintentional action. What they need to keep balance between these two groups is not only taking a neutral position but also the caution of their own speech, especially related to political and national topic. For example, Chou Tzuyu, from a Korean girls group, she held the ROC flag in a Korean TV show, which is accused by Mainland Chinese people who are mostly not familiar with K-pop. Except her political position, she should consider more about the result of this action. Besides, the agency also plays an important role in the following process. JYP Entertainment was blamed that they push Tzuyu to apologize in front of the camera by using coercive measure, which has deepened the tension among the audiences.
Furthermore, K-pop music contains different cultural members and also elements, including the traditional Korean instruments, western electronic music etc. These different types of music attracts different cultural audience, which reduce the bias of nationalism to some extent and encouraging other foreign audiences to get known of Korea at the same time. For example, “거북선”, from “show me the money episode 4”, used Gayageum which is the Korean traditional instrument with electronic music for the beat. This song definitely pleasant Korean audiences and foreign audiences. Also, it is the successful example of K-pop stars balancing the demands from Korea and overseas people. At the same time, it introduces Korean history and culture to people who are not familiar with the background story. K-pop stars also have to consider about what the possible result of their behavior among the Korean people who are strict with these. In tend, the proper way to balancing this relationship is not only hiring foreign members but also the diverse music types and latest popular elements.
After all, I think those three points from Ke Dai clearly explain the way to keep balance under different demands and the listing examples also support these opinions.
Keer Feng
#33305160
Hello ke,
Your essay is precise and clear. You have a clever argument. Importantly, you build in very plausible objections to your claims and then seek to respond to those objections. I like that you used the examples from our class, like the psy’s music video ‘Korea’ and ‘I LUV IT’. They are all good examples and are really convincing.
All of the examples you listed above are positive. The Korean pop stars always stay neutral about political affairs, they never give extreme speech about their own country, some idol groups have members from other countries other than Korea, and there are even different versions of their songs to meet various needs of their fans from around the world. But there are also some Korean stars who failed to pay attention to their words and deeds, and thus aroused discontent of the audience from different countries. For example, last year, tension between China and South Korea increased because the U.S. deployed the first elements of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to South Korea, which posed a potential threat to China. People became sensitive and extreme because of this. A lot of Chinese people said that they would never buy stuff from Korea. Thus Lotte Group, one of the top five groups in Korea, was in the in the eye of the storm. At that time, Tae Yeon from Girl’s Generation posted a picture of Lotte brand candy on her instagram and said ‘Why you are so tasty?’ . She might post that picture inadvertently, but some netizens believed that this post was a ploy by SM Entertainment to support South Korea and Lotte, which is inappropriate as a public figure. This post caused a Huge controversy. Due to big pressure from public, Tae Yeon was forced to disabled her Instagram comments and finally deleted that post.
So this example shows that it is not easy for Korean pop stars to balance the nationalism and still attracting international audience. They cannot show a clear political stand and should always avoid posting sensitive issue on social media.
Ziyu Gan
Student# 13674156
Ke Dai, if the author’s name is John Lie, your in-text citation should say “Lie” not “John” –there is no comma between Lie and 2012 (Lie 2012). And the things you have cited are very standard common knowledge, the sort of thing that does not need to be cited– instead try to engage with the actual core ideas and unique points in the article/book/chapter you are citing.
Members discussion is nice, but it’s not necessary to write once and then never come back, a conversation will yield good results, too.
Your essay attempts to explore the topic with a lot of emotion and personal opinion, but it is overwhelmingly lacking academic voices to support your claims. However, you follow a very structured outline of your essay that establishes the background as well as three ways that K-pop idols attempt to forge balance between their domestic audience and international fans. I enjoyed that you approached the analysis of K-pop beyond its sound and MV, but also to how idols market themselves on social media, which plays a very big role in how they shape their image for their audience. Good job!