This study aims to empirically assess the influence of K-pop music on the perception of South Korea as a desirable travel destination among foreign K-pop fans. Investigating the multifaceted...Show moreThis study aims to empirically assess the influence of K-pop music on the perception of South Korea as a desirable travel destination among foreign K-pop fans. Investigating the multifaceted factors that attract visitors, including the roles of government initiatives and corporate efforts, the research explores the significance of K-pop within the broader context of influences on foreign K-pop fans’ decisions to visit South Korea. Through survey data collected from 1751 K-pop fans, the results demonstrate that K-pop has a substantial impact on their perception of South Korea, contributing positively to the country's image as a tourist destination. Furthermore, the research underscores the continued value of government and corporate efforts to attract visitors, particularly through the creation of K-pop-related locations for fan visits. While K-pop does not emerge as the primary motivational factor for half of the respondents, it emerges as the most influential factor shaping the intention to visit South Korea.Show less
This study examines how the obsession with education affects the total fertility rate in South Korea. Among many factors, educational expenses weigh heavy when it comes to deciding to have another...Show moreThis study examines how the obsession with education affects the total fertility rate in South Korea. Among many factors, educational expenses weigh heavy when it comes to deciding to have another child. This study shows how education has been a means of social mobility throughout Korea’s history, how traces of this are still visible in contemporary South Korea, and how educational developments during the last century have caused private educational expenses to rise significantly. The results show that the societal preoccupation with status and education brings about excessive educational expenditures, causing parents to hold off on having a child or to give up on having another child completely, and thus lowering the total fertility rate.Show less
The adoption of UNSC Resolution 2375 and 2397 in 2017 marked the intended beginning of the end for North Korea’s lucrative labour exports, to dissuade the country from continuing its nuclear...Show moreThe adoption of UNSC Resolution 2375 and 2397 in 2017 marked the intended beginning of the end for North Korea’s lucrative labour exports, to dissuade the country from continuing its nuclear weapons programmes. However, incongruent outcomes after the repatriation deadline (December 22, 2019) pose the question of how effective sanctions targeting overseas labour have been in practice. Two empirical case studies analyse disruptions and continuities in North Korean overseas labour in (1) Russia as a whole by using visa issuance statistics, and (2) in the restaurant sector, using online review data, to gain insight into the sanctions’ effects. The findings of the first study suggest that Russia has altered its way of registering DPRK workers, rather than banning the phenomenon. Similarly, the second study shows that onethird of the North Korean overseas restaurants with online reviews is still operational far beyond the deadline. These are concentrated in China, Russia and Laos, while more distant countries have mostly closed the restaurants in connection with the sanctions. Overall, despite tangible effects, and keeping in mind hindrances posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of the sanctions is most substantially undermined by China and Russia.Show less
This thesis examines the representation of kisaeng in contemporary Korean film. It focuses on the cultural significance of their image and takes a feminist approach. The narratives of feminism,...Show moreThis thesis examines the representation of kisaeng in contemporary Korean film. It focuses on the cultural significance of their image and takes a feminist approach. The narratives of feminism, modernism, nationalism, and traditionalism, which originate from the colonial period and that kisaeng came to be an icon for, are described. Then in the analysis, the films Hwang Jin Yi (2007) and The Treacherous (2015) are checked for the presence of these narratives as well as the depiction of the kisaeng institution. The analysis is conducted utilizing Social Semiotics and MCDA for visual analysis, and also Discourse Analysis. The observational data showed a pattern of the narratives being very present in the films as well as an inaccurate depiction of the kisaeng institution.Show less
South Korea-China bilateral relations deteriorated in the wake of the THAAD announcement in July of 2016. China considers the anti-ballistic missile defense system currently situated on South...Show moreSouth Korea-China bilateral relations deteriorated in the wake of the THAAD announcement in July of 2016. China considers the anti-ballistic missile defense system currently situated on South Korean soil a gross violation of their national security. Subsequently, Chinese public opinion of South Korea regressed swiftly due to negative representation of South Korea’s security policies throughout Chinese state media. In response, South Korea employed public and traditional diplomatic approaches to restore bilateral favorability. Through a mixed method exploratory study, which considers quantitative and qualitative data, the effectiveness of public diplomacy in the given context was clearly deduced . This approach is seldom employed in the field of diplomacy research and thus resulted in a more innovative understanding. The findings demonstrate the insignificant impact that public diplomacy had on Chinese public opinion subsequent to the THAAD incident. Influential Chinese state media, effective traditional diplomatic alternatives, and insufficient coordination represent the key roadblocks for public diplomacy’s efficiency in targeting the Chinese population. Anticipating these variables can facilitate further development of public diplomacy strategies by South Korean policy makers.Show less
This quantitative study was conducted to tackle the absence of quantitative research into socialist thought within nationalist press in the 1920s. Leftist nationalist thought has been marginalised...Show moreThis quantitative study was conducted to tackle the absence of quantitative research into socialist thought within nationalist press in the 1920s. Leftist nationalist thought has been marginalised ever since the U.S. occupation of the Southern regions of the Korean Peninsula. The repression of leftist thought that the U.S. instigated continued in the South Korean state in the spirit of the Cold War and was consequently ignored by many scholars of Korea. It was after bans on leftist literature were lifted in 1988 that it sparked renewed interest by scholars. While recently more works surrounding leftist culture have been produced, studies examining the growth of socialism as political thought within the 1920s remain scarce. The development of nationalist groups in this period is important as here lie the foundations for leftist ideologies that played a major role in the division of the Korean Peninsula. Furthermore, leftist culture still remains stigmatised within South Korea today and the importance of it has yet to be fully recognised. During the first ten years of the colonisation of the Korean Peninsula (1910-1945) the Korean populace dealt with harsh repression of nationalist sentiment. After the nationalist uprisings on March 1st 1919, it became clear to the Japanese that change was needed. This coincided with the more liberal Taisho era in Japan proper and prompted a change of leadership in the colony. With the arrival of governor-general Saitō Makoto, a more liberal period in the colony was ushered in and among many changes, indigenous press was allowed under watch of colonial government. Immediately after the allowance of press, newspapers and monthly magazines produced by Koreans developed rapidly. It was within this colonial setting that a unique public sphere emerged in which, for a brief period, critical dialogue between nationalist and the colonial government was able to occur. Nationalists quickly made use of this newfound freedom. Two nationalist ideologies began playing a major role within this public sphere: cultural nationalists and socialists. Cultural nationalists advocated the construction of a new culture, which was the necessary basis for an independent Korean nation. They favoured long-term cultural ventures that would aid with the creation of a new culture and prepare Koreans for becoming independent. In contrast, socialists proposed other ideas for the way to independence in the form of Marxist ideas, often on a short term basis. Socialist authors took a critical stance towards cultural nationalists, they criticised the elitist nature of their plans and in later years even accused them of accommodationism. While dialogue between these nationalist groups occurred throughout much of the press, the dialogue within the monthly magazine Kaebyŏk (開闢) is of interest. Kaebyŏk became the most prominent and longest running magazine of the 1920s. Publishing a total of 2447 articles from its inception in 1920 until its ban by the colonial government in 1926, Kaebyŏk has often designated as the centre for cultural nationalist thought, and while authors have highlighted that socialist published within Kaebyŏk too, there are often conflicting claims as to how significant it was. This leaves a gap in our understanding of the importance of socialism within Kaebyŏk. New developments into computational approaches for the humanities expanded and became known collectively as the ‘Digital Humanities’. Approaches within this subfield offer new opportunities that were previously unachievable; through the use of computational approaches, a distant reading of large numbers of texts is possible within a small amount of time. Scholars have already begun to tap into the possibilities that this brings, but most research that is being done focuses on western historical documents and corpuses. This is due to two reasons: the availability of digitised western texts greatly outweighs counterparts and many of the tools available to conduct such research are based on western languages (mostly English). Research into other fields such as Korean studies is rising, yet groundwork for approaches easily applicable to western texts is still being laid by DH scholars. Scholars engaging in the question of the development of socialism in the 1920s have generally done so through qualitative research, bringing into focus the contents of the text. While this provides important insights into the texts and ideologies itself, it offers limited understanding of the larger trends that occurred within Kaebyŏk and the growth of socialist thought. Through the use of the aforementioned new computational approaches, this study aims to fill this gap by answering the question: How did the numerical volume of socialist publications within Kaebyŏk develop quantitively throughout its lifetime? By reducing the development of socialist thought to a numerical approach, we put in focus the larger trends of this development, but through doing so forfeit gaining new insights into the qualitative content of the texts. To achieve this, the study makes use of a method called topic modelling, which tries to disseminate ‘topics’ from a set of documents. These ‘topics’ show as result a word cluster that needs interpretation of a human actor. To achieve this on Kaebyŏk, we will make us of the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm in conjunction with gibbs sampling. By examining the produced topics and linking these to what is known about both socialism and cultural nationals articles can be tagged. A total of two topics that represent cultural nationalist ideology were found, and three that represent socialist ideology. We then examined the composition of articles and tagged these based on the found topics to produce a bar chart showing the amount of socialist and cultural nationalist articles per published issue of Kaebyŏk. The findings of this study show the prominence of socialist articles within Kaebyŏk. With initial growth in December 1922 and a small decline, we can see a resurgence of socialist articles in September 1923, whereafter they become the most present ideology when compared to cultural nationalism. Socialist articles remained present in significant numbers until the very last publication of Kaebyŏk in August 1926. Cultural nationalist articles declined sharply after September 1923, and only occasionally appeared in small numbers. This study confirms assertions by qualitative studies from Robinson (1988) that socialist influence was noticeable and Park (2015) that socialist intellectuals used Kaebyŏk as an outlet too. However, this study breaks from the expected pattern of the decline of socialist articles after the enactment of the peace preservation law and prohibition of publication for two months. None of these measures seem to have had significant effect on the amount of publications of socialist articles when compared to the period between September 1923 and the enactment of the peace preservation law. This provides evidence for the claim that the peace preservation law only became actively enforced after 1927. Additionally this study adds to the field of digital humanities by showing the possibility of using the KoNLPy package, alongside manual additions to stop-word lists, to gain useable data from older Korean texts. Furthermore, it employed the PyLDAvis package to examine the produced topic model in a more intuitive manner than the command line. It also allows for easy distribution of the results. Lastly, this thesis aims to show the possibilities that lie within cooperation between quantitive studies and qualitative studies. Without the previously conducted close readings and studies produced through this, this research would have been impossible.Show less
The last two decades, the popularity and accessibility of K-Pop have transcended Korean and Asian borders, reaching new audiences and gaining new fans, with K-Pop groups becoming not solely...Show moreThe last two decades, the popularity and accessibility of K-Pop have transcended Korean and Asian borders, reaching new audiences and gaining new fans, with K-Pop groups becoming not solely dependent on having a fanbase in Korea for their continuation. Not only have the music and visuals gone international, but also fan culture, having been adapted by international fans as well. But what makes Korean fandom culture stand out in comparison to other fan cultures? Regarding K-Pop and fans, what has been mostly covered in scholarship and media is the spread of Korean entertainment products as drama series and music, the phenomenon Hallyu, and fans as consumers of these products. The practice of fans making donations in the name of their idols is placed within the framework of gift exchange practices and parasocial relationships. This research looks at what this phenomenon could tell us of the role and position that fans and fandoms have within the Korean entertainment industry in regard to their favourite idols and the changing approach to and dependencies of their fans.Show less
This thesis examines the role of Tokto/Dokdo in the creation and maintenance of South Korean nationalism, and the way in which Tokto narratives are created and disseminated in Korean society. It...Show moreThis thesis examines the role of Tokto/Dokdo in the creation and maintenance of South Korean nationalism, and the way in which Tokto narratives are created and disseminated in Korean society. It aims to answer the question: how is the Tokto/Takeshima conflict portrayed and communicated through South Korean Tokto-related children’s literature? Based on a critical discourse analysis of a selection of the most popular Tokto children’s literature, this thesis identifies a set pattern that characterizes Tokto children’s literature as a genre. Furthermore, this thesis challenges the modernist notion that nationalism is a top-down affair, as the analysis of Tokto children’s literature shows that nationalist sentiment stems from an interplay between governmental and civil efforts. In the case of Tokto children’s literature, that is the effort to promote and proclaim Tokto as a vital part of South Korean national identity. Lastly, this thesis argues that Tokto children’s literature reflects the agenda of Tokto activists, who seek to strengthen a particular notion of South Korean national identity that centres on the idea of Japan as continuous external threat.Show less
This thesis looks at the Park Chung Hee's legacy in the context of collective memory theory. After 40 years Park's legacy still lives on. This can partially be explained by collective memory theory...Show moreThis thesis looks at the Park Chung Hee's legacy in the context of collective memory theory. After 40 years Park's legacy still lives on. This can partially be explained by collective memory theory. Elements of collective memory theory can help us understand the continuing existence of Park's legacy. Yet the collective memory theory gives no guarantees for the future.Show less
Alcohol commercials are a universal phenomenon. In Asian countries such as South Korea however, given the cultural and societal emphasis on traditional gender roles, the way alcohol is sold and...Show moreAlcohol commercials are a universal phenomenon. In Asian countries such as South Korea however, given the cultural and societal emphasis on traditional gender roles, the way alcohol is sold and consumed differs from other countries. Commercials often show the consumer how the producers believe people will use their product in a natural environment or otherwise how they want the consumer to view this certain product. This paper, therefore, analyzes different alcohol commercials in order to answer the following research question. How are South Korean women portrayed in Korean alcohol commercials and how does this differ from cultural and societal reality? The gender differences that can be noticed in all of these researches contain an important message within them, which is that gender inequality in South Korea is still an ongoing issue. Through commercials in which these female actors are portrayed as if they are truly part of the Korean culture, there is a dissonance between the truth and what people want to believe. People want to believe that, as a woman in South Korea society, they can take part in any activity they want. Truthfully, however, they are portrayed through these commercials as a marketing object that sells and as someone who is in any case still the inferior half of society.Show less
Aan de hand van twee casestudies wordt gekeken naar identiteitsvorming en activisme bij leden van studentenverenigingen in Zuid-Korea die behoren tot een seksuele minderheid. Enerzijds ligt de...Show moreAan de hand van twee casestudies wordt gekeken naar identiteitsvorming en activisme bij leden van studentenverenigingen in Zuid-Korea die behoren tot een seksuele minderheid. Enerzijds ligt de focus op identiteitsvorming: Wat is het verband tussen LGBTQ+ netwerken en identiteitsvorming? De eerste casestudy is gericht op Dancing Queers, de LGBTQ+ studentenvereniging bij Sŏgang Universiteit. Aan de hand van diepte-interviews met clubleden wordt gekeken naar de verschillende functies en doelen van de vereniging. Anderzijds wordt er gekeken naar activisme bij de clubleden: Wat is het verband tussen LGBTQ+ netwerken en activisme? De tweede casestudy werpt een blik op de politieke functie van netwerken, en focust zich op de ‘Arrest Me Too’ beweging die werd geïnstigeerd door een lid van Dancing Queers. Dit naar aanleiding van artikel 92-6 uit het Militaire Wetboek, die stelt dat homoseksuele geslachtsgemeenschap tijdens legerdienst strafbaar is.Show less
This essay argues that due to victimization by Japan, Korea as a community created a national identity that differentiates itself from Japan, resulting in a collective memory of anti-Japanese...Show moreThis essay argues that due to victimization by Japan, Korea as a community created a national identity that differentiates itself from Japan, resulting in a collective memory of anti-Japanese sentiment. This competitive nature towards Japan comes together in the Dokdo Museum Seoul that enhances the collective memory of anti-Japanese sentiment and hinders improvement of Korean-Japanese relations. This essay goes into this as it analyzes how the Dokdo Museum Seoul constitutes the collective memory of anti-Japanese sentiment through the main research question: What is the role of the Dokdo Museum Seoul in reproducing the collective memory of anti-Japanese sentiment, placed within the territorial dispute between Japan and Korea over Tokto?Show less
This thesis examines traditional Korean elements and their use in the growing trend of K-pop. While the genre has grown into a worldwide phenomenon partly because of its easily identifiable musical...Show moreThis thesis examines traditional Korean elements and their use in the growing trend of K-pop. While the genre has grown into a worldwide phenomenon partly because of its easily identifiable musical elements, fashion and English lyrics, some K-pop artists have recently chosen to incorporate elements that do not fit the so-called "K-pop formula". By looking at two case studies that have strayed from the proven formula, this thesis aims to answer the question of what the purpose is in the use of traditional elements such as specific clothing and Folk music.Show less
The Chosǒn society was a patriarchal and hierarchical society. Marriage as a rule was to continue the family line and it was a wives duty to produce a heir. Values like chastity, calmness, and...Show moreThe Chosǒn society was a patriarchal and hierarchical society. Marriage as a rule was to continue the family line and it was a wives duty to produce a heir. Values like chastity, calmness, and women as ‘good wives and wise mothers’ were important. Interestingly, these rules apparently did not apply in the same manner to kisaeng, courtesans of Korea. Though being of the lowest status in the Chosǒn society, they were trained in arts and trained to uphold conversations with high ranking men. Kisaeng were not celebrated as mothers, they were known and appreciated for their sensual beauty and talent. Over the course of time, the way kisaeng were perceived changed considerably. Where kisaeng were once seen as talented and beautiful distractions for the Yangban, from the colonial period onwards, they became known as elite prostitutes. Considering the change in the perception of kisaeng, how are they represented in contemporary South-Korea? Sageuk are contemporary korean films set in a historical background, that sometimes portray kisaeng. A kisaeng often portrayed in such films is Hwang Chin’i. One of the most famous kisaeng during the Chosǒn period and still well-known to this day, even though not many historical records of Hwang Chin’i remain. Two films portraying Hwang Chin’i are analyzed namely,‘Hwang Chin’i’ directed by Bae Ch’angho from the year 1986 and ‘Hwang Chin’i’ by directed Chang Yun-hyǒn from 2007, to answer the question: What are the different ways of depicting the kisaeng Hwang Chin’i in Korean films from two different periods?Show less
