Korea has become a strong influencer of global popular culture. With a handful of Korean celebrities entering mainstream U.S. pop music, Hallyu, the Korean Wave, has been growing tremendously in popularity. Following this global trend, American audiences are increasingly tuning into K-pop. The current study uses Q-sort methodology to investigate the motives, opinions, and attitudes of American fans of K-pop, specifically to find what drives people to seek music whose roots lie in an unfamiliar cultural landscape. Study results show that non-Korean K-pop fans in the United States fall into three distinct groups: the human lovers ("Honey honey, how you thrill me"), the product and production appreciators ("Music is my life"), and the social connectors ("With a little help from my friends"). Although the music appreciators and the socializers have been identified in previous K-pop research, the "Honey honey" group is a new category in K-pop culture research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BGMYU2/oai:scholarsarchive.byu.edu:etd-7612 |
| Date | 01 November 2017 |
| Creators | Cho, Janice Kim |
| Publisher | BYU ScholarsArchive |
| Source Sets | Brigham Young University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/ |
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