ZMET Analysis

Is K-Pop Globally Sensational?

Culture and Fashion Trends in ConsumptionProf. Yuri Seo

Group 12013198007 Jaesun Kim

2015198023 Changhyun Kim2015195030 Yejee Moon

2015198026 Je In Huh

Is K-pop Globally Sensational?

Group 1: Jaesun Kim, Changhyun Kim, Yejee Moon, Je In Huh

A. Group Description and Relevance

In news articles and media in Korea, K-pop seems to possess tremendous power in

the global market. However, does this also apply to the reality? Or have we been

brainwashed by these images that the media has created? What if we have been

overestimating the influence of K-pop since we are living in Korea? This analysis started

from these doubts. Sometimes Koreans even use ‘gukbbong’ to indicate excessive

patriotism. In order to get objective view, we thought our interviewees should have both

deep understanding of Korean culture and cultural experiences from other nations outside

Korea. Thus, group 1 – we chose ‘people who have multicultural backgrounds’ as our

consumer group.

To clarify, we set Koreans who have experiences of living both in Korea and

other countries for at least 3 years each (For Korean university admission, students who

had lived in foreign countries for at least 3 years can apply for “special admission track”

as overseas residents. Thus, we set 3 years to be the minimum period for qualification of

our interviewees.) or foreigners who have deep understanding or experiences related to

Korea as our respondents. In our opinion, people who met our criteria could offer more

objective views than Koreans who has been living only in Korea, while still being not

ignorant to K-pop.

B. Analysis Description

Jaesun

She is 20 years old and a student majoring in Mass Communication at Yonsei

University. She had lived in Myanmar from 2000 to 2013. She graduated an international

high school run by the US embassy. After the graduation, she came back to Korea. She is

ethnically South Korean and her nationality is South Korean even though she had lived in

Myanmar for most of her life. She was the only respondent who had living experiences in

South-East Asia where K-pop is more sensational compared to Western countries.

Changhyun

Changhyun is 23 years old, and she had lived in the States for 8 years. She had

spent 4 years in the West Coast, California, and then moved to East Coast, Virginia, and

lived there for another 4 years. She is currently double majoring in Creative Technology

Management and Asian Studies division. Changhyun qualifies our criteria of selecting

respondents in the way that she has plenty of sociocultural experiences in both domestic

and foreign countries. Also the fact that she majored in Asian studies made her a more

interesting respondent as she could provide an academic view towards K-pop.

Yejee

Yejee is a middle-aged male who was born in Croatia but also shares Italian

culture thanks to his mother who is Italian. He first visited Korea as an assistant professor

at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in 2007, and currently is a professor of

Uunderwood International College at Yonsei University and also gives lectures to

graduate students of Cultural Anthropology Department in the same school. His main

focus is to study Korean youth culture and on feminism, and K-pop is a key factor of his

study material, Hallyu or Korean Wave. He has been living in such a multicultural

background and still is dedicated to delve into different cultures, utilizing his insights from

his experiences.

Je In

Je In is a 21-year-old college student who attends Underwood International

College in Yonsei University. She is qualified for conducting the interview with three

degrees: her preference in K-Pop, her multicultural experiences of living abroad, and her

interests in the two sides of K-Pop – on the stage and off the stage. She resided abroad for

3 years in total. By having the experiences of living in both a Korean society and a

Canadian society, Je In has both the perspectives of Korean and that of Canadian. After

living abroad, she came to Korea and entered an international college, therefore continuing

the multicultural lifestyles.

Collecting and Analyzing the Data

For analyzing the data, we thought that Hermeneutics was more appropriate than

Phenomenology. In our ZMET interviews, the respondents have selected images that best

represent their perceptions or experiences about K-pop. Since ZMET images are

symbolizing respondents’ personal thoughts, the researcher inevitably has to focus on

interpreting the meaning of the image as in Hermeneutics rather than focusing on

phenomenological analysis.

To combine each data, we firstly gathered and shared our interview experiences

with ZMET images. We tried to find out commonality among our interviews. Since all

respondents were from different countries and debated on broad concept of K-pop, it was

hard to find out common grounds. So we drew our ZMET images and wrote down

keywords representing images. Like what we did in the workshop during the class, we

divided images into several themes. We clarified our hypothesis and made logics by using

the themes and keywords. Then, we could come up with our own conclusion.

C. Themes about Meanings

1. Visual Appearances

1-a.  External Aspects

       The most noticeable factor in every aspect of feasible culture-related products is on

the imagery. K-pop is not an exception to this rule that many people who are either

interested in or studying the matter, intuitively and almost instinctively grasp the visual

factors of such culture first. Our participants also seemed to be paying attention at the

external features of the components of K-pop industry. For instance, the most significant

trait that Je In looked at was on so-called “knife group dance” or kalgunmu. Its meaning

comes from the formation of the choreography that is “as accurate as if it were cut by a

knife”. She thinks it is a very interesting phenomenon observed almost solely in K-pop,

which lead to the differentiation and ultimately to the success of it.

Similarly, Jaesun also pointed out the most noticeable element that caused the

current success of K-pop to be on the overall visual effects seen in various aspects of the

performances. In fact, according to researches on human body, vision is the most

dominant sensory function, and the “ultimate purpose of the visual process is to arrive at

an appropriate motor, and/or cognitive response.” In accordance with the current tendency

of growing popularity of K-pop, compared to the past several decades, more entertainment

companies try to make vivid contrast with other competing companies in the same field by

employing visuals. For example, Jaesun said that from the nuance of K-“pop”, she

believes that the target market of K-pop should be the group that wants to appreciate the

colorful sensory stimulation, since “pop” suggests the general vibe of the genre to be

bright and dynamic.

1-b. Internal Aspects

        On contrary to Je In’s somewhat positive view shown on 1-a, Yejee pointed out

some potential problematic aspects related to the mass’s attention leaning mostly toward

the exterior of k-pop artists. For the photo he and chosen, he said 2NE1’s team concept is

“girl power”. In fact, members of 2NE1 demonstrate their powerfulness through their

dance motions and uniquely designed bright-colored outfits. However, Yejee further

mentions that despite their dazzling appearance and attitude on stage, “they are dependent

on corporative decisions that sometimes they are put aside or their life is highly

regulated.” He then continued that this kind of phenomenon could be seen as a paradoxical

aspect of K-pop culture and its industry; however brilliant it promotes its players, the

actual performers will just always be meekly following the corporative decision.

        On the same note, Yejee also noticed that sometimes the alteration of

“image” or “concept” is deliberately used, based on psychological assumptions. For

example, on the photo of Girls’ Generation, they are wearing schoolgirl uniforms. When

Girls Generation first came out, they were wearing schoolgirl-like costumes. As they

continued to come up with new albums, instead of accelerating onto “sexy” concept as

what the typical girl groups would display, they stopped at the “girlish” step.

     According to the ZMET analysis, it is evident that there is the discrepancy

between the fancy faces of K-Pop and the realities behind the stages. Je In pointed out

(refers to Je In image 2) that the celebrities of K-Pop are wearing masks in order to hide

their real faces behind their artificial behaviors. Because the consumers of K-Pop

recognize the celebrities’ personalities as they see them through the TV shows, it is the

celebrities’ fate to disguise their personal life.

        The attention on the appearances of K-Pop also raises the problems of the

standardization of beauty. According to Je In, nice-looking celebrities definitely have

impact on the standards of beauty. Some celebrities’ inappropriate ways of losing weight

forms the standard of beauty, regardless of their unhealthy diet. Je In mentioned that she

also was influenced by Yoona (refers to Je In image 3) and encouraged to loose weight.

This standardized measure of beauty leads to further stereotypes of the overall Koreans –

that all Koreans are beautiful. Changhyun pointed out (refers to Changhyun image 5) that

K-Pop stars are portrayed as beautiful people with perfect physical images. The

idealization of entertainers in K-Pop industry changes foreigners’ entire view about

Koreans in general. This may provoke negative perceptions that K-Pop celebrities spend a

lot of effort and expense on beauty care and plastic surgery.

        The tendency to put emphasis on the appearances causes the excessive competition

in the K-Pop industry. Despite that are limited chances for the people who want to become

K-Pop artists, there are tons of idol trainees and applicants for audition programs. Je In

described this by showing an image of students taking an exam (refers to Je In image 5).

Although the spotlight on the stage looks dazzling, thousands of trainees who doesn’t

succeed fall behind every year. This increases the gap between the well-known celebrities

and those who are not well-known. She brought an image of two men who show a

significant gap in their income in Je In image 1.

2. Scope of K-pop

2-a. K-pop represents hybridity

         Both Yejee and Changhyun described K-pop as a culture of hybridity. First,

Changhyun defines K-pop as hybrid music that is produced by various musicians.

Accordingly, she included not only idol groups but also Korean indie bands under the

category of K-pop musicians. Changhyun Image 4 shows the album cover of Urban

Zakapa, a Korean underground band of K-pop. While describing this image, she noted that

most of the Americans who know K-pop do acknowledge that there are different music

genres within K-pop. Meanwhile, Yejee alluded K-pop song to an ‘ice cream waffle’, as in

Yejee Image 4. Ice cream waffles are a combination of different ingredients. Similarly, K-

pop song is a fusion of different elements. For instance, a lot of K-pop songs (especially

songs by idol groups) are not limited to a certain genre. Rather, they are a combination of

different music genres such as R&B, pop, and EDM. From this, it can be concluded that

K-pop song itself is a hybridity of musical elements.

         2-b.  K-pop as a Limited Genre

         Unlike Yejee and Changhyun, Jaesun defined K-pop in a different way. She

thought that only music by idol groups could be included as K-pop. For her, the term

‘pop’ connoted happiness and lightness. Accordingly, hip-hop and ballad musicians in

Jaesun Image 4 and 5 could not be categorized as ‘K-pop’ musicians, but just Korean

singers. Although she personally like these musicians, their music was too ‘heavy’ to be

considered as pop. We have found out that the term ‘pop’ is understood differently. Since

the term ‘K-pop’ itself is a combination of ‘pop’ and K (which represents Korea), its

scope could be determined by the scope of pop.

3. Status of K-pop in the Globalized World

         As mentioned from our introduction, our main goal was to find out whether the

status of K-pop in the global world was overestimated or not. From our respondents, we

could find an interesting answer to this question. Since all of our respondents have

experiences both in Korean and foreign countries, they did mention how reactions towards

K-pop differed based on national backgrounds. If we divide popularity of K-pop in four

scale, there would be ‘overwhelming,’ ‘popular,’ ‘neutral’ and ‘indifferent.’ K-pop in

Korean media seems to be ‘overwhelming.’ However, from our respondents, we figured

out that K-pop is between ‘popular’ and ‘neutral’ in foreign countries.

3-a. K-pop as a Dominant Culture

         Changhyun describes K-pop as a strongly dominant, even ‘destructive’ culture in

Korea. In marketing terms, something – whether it is a technology, culture or a trend – is

called to be ‘destructive’ when it has such a big impact that life will never be the same

prior to it. Changhyun image 6 fragmentarily shows how K-pop is destructive in Korea. In

Korea, we can hear K-pop songs literally everywhere. Also, themes about K-pop music

could be frequently seen in variety shows or other Korean medium. In culture news

section, it is all about K-pop stars and singers. From all of this, one can say that K-pop

indeed have an excessive ‘destructiveness’ in Korea.

K-pop also created a unique fan culture known as ‘fandoms.’  Fandoms do a lot of

activities related to the celebrities that they support. For instance, Yejee mentioned about

how foreign K-pop fans are avidly making K-pop related products such as the fan-art like

Yejee Image 5. Also, Changhyun said that foreign K-pop fandoms create and develop

various social media such as K-pop forums (as in Changhyun Image 2). Since foreigners

do not have sound searching engines (as in Changhyun Image 3) that Koreans use, they

have to actively use K-pop forums when they want to search certain K-pop songs. Foreign

fandoms seem to be larger than they really are because they do a lot of activities in various

fields.

For these reasons, a lot of Koreans assume K-pop to be dominant (or major) not

only in Korea but also in foreign countries. But is K-pop truly sensational in foreign

countries? According to our findings, our answer is “No”.

3-b. K-pop as a Minor Culture

         Our respondents thought that K-Pop is still a minor culture in foreign countries,

even though international interest of K-pop is gradually increasing. Interestingly, the

respondents gave different reasons for this.

Jaesun (Myanmar): In Myanmar, K-pop itself was not that big, but it was even

harder to find K-pop girl groups. Jaesun thought that it was because of the different

beauty standards of women in Korea and Myanmar. In Myanmar, fat and curvy

women as in Jaesun Image 6 are considered to be the ideal physical image of

females. K-pop girl groups were too skinny for their criteria of beauty, so there

weren’t many Korean girl bands which had been successful in Myanmar. Boy

bands, on the other hand, made more success than girl bands because Burmese

preferred men who were skinny with white skins, just as the K-pop boy groups in

Jaesun Image 2 and 3.

Changhyun (America): Changhyun pointed out that K-pop was perceived

differently according to western area and eastern area of the States. In the Eastern

Coast, K-pop is considered to be a “low key, nerdy culture” whereas Western

Coast is more open to K-pop. In California, some people knew about K-pop due to

Megan Lee (Changhyun Image 1), who is a famous Korean-American singer from

California. However, in Virginia, Changhyun reminisced that she could not openly

reveal the fact that she was a K-pop fan. First of all, there weren’t many students

who knew about K-pop, and even if they knew about K-pop, they were more like a

minor group of manias.  Changhyun thinks ethnicity is the reason for the different

status of K-pop between East and West of the States. Western Coast has an

ethnically diverse population that were centered by Asian-Americans, while

Eastern Coast is mostly constituted of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon People).

Je In (Canada): Canadians were mostly indifferent about K-Pop and Korean

culture. Unlike Koreans’ perceptions towards themselves that K-Pop is a global

trend, most of the Canadians Je In met didn’t know about K-Pop, or they had little

information about it. Je In admitted that the Korean media reports were

exaggerated than the reality. She was asked several times about PSY when she

mentioned that she was from Korea, but there were no further awareness or interest

towards K-Pop. Besides PSY, K-Pop boy groups were also recognized by very few

foreigners – Japanese immigrants. Most of the Japanese immigrants were fans of

K-Pop boy groups, but they were still a small minority. Other Canadians were

indifferent about the listeners of K-Pop just like they were indifferent about K-Pop

itself. They didn’t have any stereotypes about the minority fans.

D. Discussion and Conclusion

According to the interviewees, K-pop has some paradoxical or problematic aspect

within its industry. We could find out how the interest of entertainment companies were

based on the market economy and the standard of beauty was wrongly-set according to the

logic of the market on the media. For instance, some points were raised upon 1-b that

intensify both excessive competition among entertainers and the negative perceptions on

K-pop celebrities. However, K-pop still has merits in terms of visual effects as it was

mentioned in 1-a. Because of its unique and dazzling visual enjoyment it provides with

consumers, K-pop has potentials to appeal to the general public in other parts of the world

as well.

The definition of K-pop could differ depending on how the listeners set the range

of musical genre(s) that it is confined to. Some respondents insisted that K-pop is a limited

genre solely created by idol groups. However, all interviewees agreed that there are some

other Korean songs that express emotions other than those that are often dealt within the

idol-music boundary. It implies that K-pop has to acknowledge its limitation, expanding

and advertising its wide scope. We figured out how dominant or “destructive” K-pop

music is in Korea, and also how it does not have that much of an impact outside of Korea.

From here, we assume that by noticing the contrast between the status of K-pop within

and outside Korea could fill in the gap between the isolated point of view that K-pop is

already global.

Works Cited

Oh, In Gyu. "The Globalization of K-pop: Korea`s Place in the Global Music Industry." Korean Studies Information Service System. Korea Observer, 2013. Web.

Lie, John. "Introduction." Cross-Currents Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 3.3 (2014): 1-5. Web.

Howard, Keith. "K-pop—The International Rise of the Korean Music Industry." Ethnomusicology Forum 24.2 (2015): 298-300. Web.

Kim, Jae-heun. "Yang Hyun-suk Sees Bright Future in K-pop in Global Market." The Korea Times. 02 Nov. 15. Web.