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Challenges in the Korean music industry
When it comes to non-western music “Asian”, it is still quite difficult to outshine easily in the global market and global media. People are still not quite fully accepting or well-receiving society, and this can be noticed from everyday life, especially in the entertainment industry (Force, 2018). For instance, ‘Asian’ and ‘Black’ artists are still disregarded by the music awarding institutions, and several examples can be mentioned such as the Grammy award show, where Macklemore won best rap album over Kendrick Lamar (2013) as well as other Afro-American artists such as Jay Z, Drake, and Kanye West were present in the same category (Variety, 2019). That is why social media is used by many foreign and non-western artists in order to reach more online audiences’ “fans” and create strong fan bases based on their everyday content and not subject to academic recognition organisations.
However, it is important to be aware of the existence of Korean pop idols, as they still promote themselves by using western platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, SoundCloud. Rather than rely on official music platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify.
From another perspective, one could understand the meaning of social media for fans as it helps creating relationships with their artists (Baym, 2015). By active participation on social media, it also gives them a feeling of belonging to a certain community (Baym, 2015).
These fandoms contribute in a way by sharing and engaging in content related to their artists, yet this is still to be proven, as it is only an assumption.
Importance of this study
Investigating non-western media practices is important because research in social media has shown how it can be efficient and effective along different fields, but not necessarily in K-pop. However, studies conducted by Baym (2015) have stated that sociological ‘ethnographic’ or ‘netnographic’ research has enabled the understanding of the power of relationship creation between the artist and the fan through shared practices on social media. Jenkins (2007) has also highlighted in many of his studies how media, television, and newspaper were the start of a big revolution. That is why this study could be the start of an emerging topic about media practices by Asian artists and their fans. Furthermore, this could be a small part of a more developed cross-cultural study for future research topics.
Aim of the Study
The subject of this thesis is to understand the use of social media by Korean pop idols and fans, as it aims to a deeper understanding of what can be entailed from the different online media practices. The research questions formulated are as such:
– RQ1: What are BTS members doing in order to engage fans through their social media platform account?
– RQ2: What are the fans doing in order to engage with BTS’s posts online?
– RQ3: What kind of participatory culture and online social identity is emerging through
media practices?
The aim of this master thesis will be to understand and analyse what type of online digital media practices are generated from a frequent use of social media by the Korean pop idol group BTS. These research questions were constructed in the objective of investigating how daily use of digital media by BTS the Korean Band and the European fans can create a participatory culture and online social identity. Online media practices will be analysed based on the types of activities that both parties are conducting through social network platforms with a focus on the engagement of fans.
RQ1 aims to investigate the first part of the thesis which consists in analysing the south Korean band media practices in order to engage fans with their online content through the personal use of Twitter account. RQ2 aims at analysing the practices of the fans in relation to the Twitter posts generated by BTS.
Finally, RQ3 aims at explaining what kind of participatory culture and social identity that is emerged from online media practices based on RQ1 and RQ2. This will lead to interpreting how the use of social media practices may create a strong engagement and lead to a form of communication between the artist and the fan.
By also studying the active participation of fan’s engagement through online activities, it will help in creating a deeper understanding around the European fandom’s shared practices and identities. As a result, these research questions will enable me to determine if digital media practices and the strong engagement from fans and musicians, will contribute to the success of creating online engagement, which will lead to a specific participatory culture.
Thesis structure
The thesis structure will investigate RQ1, RQ2, and RQ 3 that will allow me to look into online digital media practices by BTS and their fans, followed by Chapter II, a literature review that describes in a chronological order the different types of previous research done using same or similar theoretical concepts. Chapter III includes the theoretical background describing the relevant theories and concepts used by the scholars that I have made use of in my analysis. The aim of this chapter is to introduce the different concepts about online media practices, shared practices in communities, and participatory cultures that will allow a discussion in regard to the data collected and analysed in Chapter V. Furthermore, Chapter IV introduces the methodology of the thesis. This chapter focuses on presenting the used methodology and the process of collecting the data, with the help of social scientific methods. Then, I mainly present the how I selected data and selected the online communities on Twitter, then introduced the analysis step. I also, finished by explaining the different problems, challenges, and ethical measures for conducting this research. Chapter V, presents the analysis of the data retrieved from Twitter. The analysis contains two main parts: The first part includes an analysis about the most engaged post published by BTS on their personal account. A deep qualitative analysis was conducted in order to look into the type of content that was generated and attractive for fans to engage with based on the three main Twitter variables: Liking, Retweeting, and Commenting, followed by a second quantitative analysis on investigating the relationships between the function and see if there is any correlation between the variables.
The second part of the thesis investigated the second research question, about fans participation and activity online. This part studies what type of participation and what are their media practices on Twitter. The third and final part of the analysis, make use of RQ1 and RQ2 in order to explain what can be emerged from online media practices.
The articles chosen for this chapter present different study frameworks that have been used to understand fan participation and what can be emerged from digital media integration around the entertainment sector. These researches will help in introducing an outline of how media can be a contributor to its practice dimension. Although, not all the frameworks have a specific focus within the media and communication field, they showed how mediated platforms and integration shaped the industry in fandom and cultural studies. Some of the existing research mentioned in this chapter, have been conducted in the context of Korean pop culture and the impact of new media in this field. Social media practices in K-pop have been conducted in regard to the business field but not the sociological and communication. Some critics could be addressed to these studies as the focus for choosing the articles may seem biased to the reader.
As I mentioned, not much research has been conducted in the South Korean society and its music scene, but since the interest of this thesis lies in understanding the practices of media from artists and European fans in the Korean pop culture, I will use existing research that have different focus in order to set a scene for the next chapter. Furthermore, participation3 , shared identities and practices4, and participatory culture5 were key themes and concepts for the literature review.
Digital media in the Entertainment industry
Digital media has played an important part in the exploitation and discovery of new trends of music that are emerging from different cultures (Booth, 2010). As technology integration has been integrated in the different societies, it has allowed the improvement and advancement of technological devices. With that evolvement in the digital sector, the entertainment has also shown a certain extent of popularity (Booth, 2010). Back in 2011, YouTube has added the specific genre of music K-pop and that was the start on the internet and social media exploitation by music companies in South Korea. As an example, artists and channels on YouTube have attracted as stated “2.9 Billion hits from Asia, which was a feat in the music industry” (Ahn, Oh, & Kim, 2013).
Social media is an important part of marketing especially in the business field since most people perceive it as a reliable and credible source that is easily reachable.
Entertainment companies in south Korea have been using social media tools for different purposes through YouTube channels as they have been doing that by either promoting, products, albums, charity campaigns, etc (Ahn, Oh, & Kim, 2013).
With this increase popularity of social media integration into practice, business models have been constantly affected in terms of revenues (Ahn et al., 2013). From the survey conducted in this business research, the three major or most popular entertainment companies have been taken as a sample among others, since they occupy a big part of the market share (Ahn et al., 2013). The findings showed that “B2B revenue of SM Entertainment contributed 80% of total sales in 2010 and YG Entertainment’s B2B revenue also increased from 12% in 2006 to 40% in 2010” (Ahn et al., 2013, p.4). Looking at the media platforms of the big three corporation: “YG”, “SM”, and “JYP” (Brand names of the most famous entertainment companies), each of them have a minimum of one social media account, the first entry to this type of strategy was by SM back in 2006 compared to the other that following in the same footsteps as a result of seeing the success generated form it (Ahn, Oh, & Kim, 2013).
In line with what has been mentioned, digital media has been part of many celebrities’ lives (Stever & Lawson, 2013). According to Stever and Lawson (2013) article conducted by the empire state college, it shows that Twitter has an impactful way as they use it for many types of interactions. Social media platforms like Myspace, Facebook, etc, are platforms for users to share about their daily activities by posting it online (Stever & Lawson, 2013). These platforms have enabled people to participate in instant interactions with other individuals especially the communication process between celebrities and fans. Twitter especially has become one of the most used and efficient platforms for artists to reach their respective fans and admirers online (Stever & Lawson, 2013). This platform has been found to be a good start for famous people to reach a wider audience and converse with them. Twitter as a platform has in fact shown its efficiency as fans could nowadays send personal messages to their celebrities and it offers a secure space for interaction (Stever & Lawson, 2013).
Dwyer and Fraser (2017) research focus on celebrities use of social media Twitter as a form of addiction for celebrities. However, this article also highlights how SNS6 platform “Twitter” is used by public figures in the entertainment industry and how important is Twitter to online participation. The study uses concepts developed by Jenkins (2006) and other relevant scholar in order to understand celebrities use of Twitter in a particular framework. In fact, the author makes use of the statement used by Jenkins and Braun where they mention that Twitter allows for ‘participatory culture’ in which participants become producers in the cultural online space provided by the digital media platform (Dwyer & Fraser, 2017).The research demonstrates how celebrities use Twitter, as this particular platform showed that “320 million people actively using the platform each month” (Dwyer & Fraser, 2017).
Celebrities have been proved to be one of the earliest users on this platform when it first launched. Also, they have been identified as one of the most common users when practicing online on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, etc, especially on Twitter where scholars have made use of this information to conduct research each month (Dwyer & Fraser, 2017). Through the main interest of this study, it has showed that celebrities make use mediated platforms for different purposes. This is interesting to look through, because the author looks into a specific practice side of a social media platform which is interesting to look at from the perspective of the activity of a public figure on social media (Dwyer & Fraser, 2017).
Even though these conducted research have been developed depending on a specific objective, some of them have demonstrated how media can be a tool for self-practice.
Communities’ formation and Participatory culture
Participatory culture and media participation have allowed fans to access a virtual community in which they are able to form their own digital spaces with their society. Postigo (2012) discusses the importance of digital media use in a participatory culture and its consumption. In fact, digital technologies have enabled online users to be a part of media production as well as media distributors on many platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, etc.
Focusing on the frameworks of people’s participation in relation to the media practices, Postigo highlights people’s active participation allows them to be pro-active. The researcher focuses on the concept of “participatory culture” using Jenkins idea on how a high consumption of mass media allows the creation of a form of cultural convergence, helping him to understand the movement’s idea (Postigo, 2012). The constant use of media creates in a way a participatory culture that leads to a form of practicing and using the mediated platforms (Postigo, 2012). The research discusses how culture is an important aspect of media practices since it creates in its own way it’s appropriate participatory culture (Postigo, 2012). Also, technology has its own contribution to the online consumption of cultural product that leads to a formation of a particular framework of a culture (Postigo, 2012).
Additionally, online platforms enable people to develop their own practices and online consumption such as using social networking platform to meet people, create mashups, produce online video making, etc (Postigo, 2012). These participatory actions would have not been existent if it wasn’t for technological advancement and the creation of participatory culture within a group. Moreover, the author explicitly mentions that technology has always been an important factor in the construction initiating participation in a culture. Online activists see that digital integration facilitates the participation in cultures and that participation is needs to be understood when it is practiced in a specific framework (Postigo, 2012).
Marinescu and Balica (2013) found that traditional media is considered to still be part of a common media practice that has allowed an easy integration of a different culture to a European society through the media consumption. Korean dramas have been heavily entering the Romanian market and influencing the viewers. Many mediums have advertised about the different Korean products, such as Music, Dramas, or other products. From this, many online communities have established online due to the popularity of the Korean products (Dramas, Music, tangible products) (Marinescu & Balica, 2013). The researcher suggests in this study that online community’s formation started following the traditional media practices by the Romanian medias. Also, following the increase rate through first contact with Korean production on fan sites, Romanian have started to diffuse and introduce Korean pop music in their local media space (Marinescu & Balica, 2013).
In addition, the researchers used a standardized questionnaire and also made use of sending out the questionnaire through different websites (made use of sociological methods for the design of this specific methods). The investigation conducted shows how the evolution of community formation has been executed depending on the different media practices that influenced the Romanian region (Marinescu & Balica, 2013). From this concept of media practices, fans have been proven to be a critical part of the spread of the culture as they maintain constant online practices on mediated platforms. The study investigated the characteristics of fans and their relationship with K-pop interest. For my point, I noticed a common thing patter of shared practices and shared identities that K-pop fans have all together. Even though, it is not explicitly mentioned I would say that it is one of the themes that have been highlighted in the study. For that reason, this was one of the motivations to use this article, as I would like to feel the gap in my research by pointing out the shared practices and demonstrate it in my own thesis.
Table of contents :
1 INTRODUCTION
2.1 BACKGROUND
2.1.1 PROFILE OF “BTS”
2.2 CULTURAL PARTICIPATION ONLINE
2.3 CHALLENGES IN THE KOREAN MUSIC INDUSTRY
2.4 IMPORTANCE OF THIS STUDY
2.5 AIM OF THE STUDY
2.6 THESIS STRUCTURE
3 LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 DIGITAL MEDIA IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
3.2 COMMUNITIES’ FORMATION AND PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
3.3 SUMMARY
4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
4.1 DIGITAL MEDIA PRACTICE
4.2 ONLINE COMMUNITIES’ PRACTICES
4.3 PARTICIPATORY CULTURE
4.4 SUMMARY AND RELEVANCE OF THEORIES
5 METHODOLOGY
5.1 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH
5.1.1 CONTENT ANALYSIS
5.1.2 ONLINE SURVEY
5.2 DATA SELECTION
5.2.1 ONLINE COMMUNITY SELECTION
5.2.2 TWITTER ACCOUNT SELECTION (BTS)
5.3 DATA COLLECTION
5.4 METHOD OF DATA ANALYSIS
5.5 TWITTER AS A FORM OF “ENGAGEMENT”
5.5.1 VARIABLES DESCRIPTION
5.6 CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, AND SOLUTIONS
5.7 ETHICS
6 RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
6.1 ARTIST ONLINE MEDIA PRACTICES
6.2 FAN ONLINE MEDIA PRACTICES
6.3 PARTICIPATORY CULTURE AND SHARED PRACTICES
7 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
7.1 DISCUSSION AND REFLECTION
7.2 LIMITATION
7.3 FURTHER RESEARCH AND CONTRIBUTION
8 REFERENCES
9 APPENDIX A
10 APPENDIX B
11 APPENDIX C
12 APPENDIX D
