How do political, economic, and culutral changes converge together to create kpop and how does it impact other culturals today?

SLR RESULTS


Fanclub Interview Questions:
1) How do you think K-pop has affected the Filipino culture?

2) What makes K-pop so appealing that other fans from different countries (who probably do not speak Korean) are attracted to it?

3) Has K-pop changed your perspective on other cultures?

4) Do you think K-pop affected government or economy? If so, how?

Professor Interview Questions:

1. What political, historical, or cultural events in Korea’s history do you believe contributed to the existence and success of Kpop?
   
2. How has the popularity of Kpop contributed to South Korea’s identity and role in the world?
   
3. How does Kpop influence cultures around the globe and do you believe this influence is positive or negative?
   

Super Junior PH Fanclub Interview

1. Kpop have become a trend nowadays. A decade ago, Kpop is considered as an uncharted territory. No one knows and or even cared to know what it stands for. Today, not only kids listen to Kpop everyday, they have also adapted the latest Korean fashion trends. Most Filipinos have become fond of using Korean make up and skin care products. More people try out and enjoy Korean cuisine. Kpop and Korean culture in general have progressively immersed itself to the daily lives of most Filipinos.
   
2. What makes Kpop so appealing that other fans from different countries (who probably do not speak Korean) are attracted to it? Maybe because some people wanted something different from what they used to listen to. Western music concepts have become repetitive and somewhat lost its appeal in some way. While Kpop always seem to offer something fresh. Kpop is a genre but within it, there are more genres to listen to (hiphop, trot, ballads, etc.) It is also a plus that most Korean artists these days can not only sing and dance but most of them have branched out into composing, producing their own music and directing their concert  performances. And it also doesn't hurt that they're all very attractive and beautiful.
   
3. Yes. Before Kpop, I have never been exposed or even shown any interest in getting to know about other cultures. I just accepted whatever is being thrown at me. But after discovering kpop when only a few knew about it, I became interested in the entire Korean culture itself. And after engaging yourself and learning more about the Korean culture and traditions, you'll realize that we're not much different from them and that we have a lot similarities which makes it easier to adapt to their culture.
   
4. - i think Filipinos are generally pretty good in adapting to different cultures anyway. Its effect has just become more prominent nowadays because people have become better at expressing what they want and what they think look good and most of us have become more accepting of each other's differences.
   

- I do think it did affect our economy in a positive way. With more korean brands coming in, be it in kpop, cosmetics, food, and other services, this have also opened immensed opportunities for Filipinos in terms of employment, business (physical and online stores) and education.





ASTRO PH Fanclub Interview #1:

1. Kpop has affected in a way that it changed and widened some perspective about culture and music. Like how people have becoming accepting and understanding of another culture, language, and such. The current Filipino pop culture may also have been influenced a little by Kpop.
   
2. Visual aesthetics mostly, I believe. Because Kpop is different. More vivid, brighter visuals that catch your attention quite easily. Also, the sound, beat, or tune is catchy/fun.
   
3. Not really. Because I've been exposed to other cultures even before Kpop.
   
4. I don't think so because Kpop doesn't seem that widespread enough to affect the government and economy.
   

ASTRO PH Fanclub Interview #2:

1. Well, it affected in a way na may aspects ang K-POP (like music, cinematography, etc) na naiincorporate sa Filipino contemporary culture. (trans: well, it affected in a way that the aspects of K-POP (like music, cinematography, etc) are incorporated in Filipino contemporary culture)
   
2. Simple, it being vivid and colorful makes it attracting and enticing for fans around the world. It's not just language that connects people, it's the story. The story that K-POP has in it.
   
3. Nah. Since everyone must understand that culture is unique.
   
4. Not really though they impose tax on K-POP concerts pero that's so small to affect the economy naman (trans: not really though they impose tax on K-POP concerts but that’s so small to affect the economy, though)
   

ASTRO PH Fanclub Interview #3:

1. not on a large-scale, but it helped proliferate a certain online culture and fandom culture influenced by korean fandoms. I don't think it's widespread enough to say that it has affected our culture per say, but helped Filipinos develop a better understanding and acceptance of other languages and cultures, and somehow encouraged young people to be bold enough to travel abroad (I see so many ppl, kpop fans or othewise, traveling abroad as of recent)
   
2. It's honestly all about the visuals. I mean the whole package of it. It's bold, it's different (and it's always exciting to be different), it's fun, a mixture of dance, music, fashion, beauty. If you enjoy any of those, kpop is something you will enjoy. And this is a more personal opinion, but I believe there's a certain beauty and sense of peace when listening to music you don't understand the lyrics of. For me, it helps me concentrate on tasks - it cancels the noise, you can simply 'feel' it, 'groove' to it or even sing along or dance, without overthinking its meaning? Listening to a western song ruins my concentration during work (i often end up typing the lyrics).
   
3. generally? not really since i was already very accepting and understanding of foreign cultures beforehand.
   
4. local economy not so much. Government, again not so much. It did open our eyes about how advanced the other countries are compared to our own, based on things we see on kpop/kdrama content, so we are more aware of what we don't have here and what we want our govt to deliver
   

Chua Beng Huat Interview:

1. What political, historical, or cultural events in Korea’s history do you believe contributed to the existence and success of Kpop?
As you might know, South Korea was under military authoritarian regime until late 1980s, when its politics was finally democratised with direct election of its president. With the political democratization, the media was also liberalized. The three major TV stations began to compete for its domestic audience. One of the areas of very keen competition is in TV drama series; one could watch drama all day in Korea, even today. Korean TV dramas were the first Kpop exports regionally to the rest of East Asia. Secondly, after democratization Japan and Korea signed a friendship agreement which allowed the direct and open importation of Japanese pop culture, which had been banned but regularly smuggled into Korea until then. Korean pop culture producers copied and learned a lot from J-pop, including the production system for pop music bands; the Japanese production company, called Johnny’s Boys had developed the system of hot-housing young talents. After the success of K-drama, K-pop began to be exported again mainly in East Asia; various attempts by K-pop individual singers and bands to break into the US market had failed, including Rain and Girl’s Generation. However, with the tied up between K-pop music producers and social media sites, such as Facebook, K-pop has now reached a larger global audiences.

2. How has the popularity of Kpop contributed to South Korea’s identity and role in the world?
Culturally Korea has always suffered from being sandwiched between two larger nations, China and Japan. Historically, Korean culture is highly influenced by Chinese culture; until the 15th century when then Korean emperor invented the Korean alphabet, Koreans used Chinese characters; until today, most upper class Koreans are still proud of their Chinese calligraphy. In terms of modern culture, Korea was colonized by Japan for 50 years, and thus always considered itself lagging behind Japan. The popularity of K-pop has given Koreans great boost of national pride and national identity, that its culture is finally recognized by others!

3. How does Kpop influence cultures around the globe and do you believe this influence is positive or negative?
I think like all pop culture, K-pop influence is not likely to be long lasting, Indeed, K-drama is already losing its audiences in Asia and the ‘heat’ and ‘excitement’ around K-pop music is also cooling down.


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Since the last time I wrote about our research I learned about how kpop affects other fans perspective and how it broadens their view on other cultures. I also learned about South Korea’s identity in the world. What I learned about working with others is that it is always going to be challenging and that’s okay because if we all help then we can get the work done. Plus if we are learning about a topic we like it makes it less challenging and helps it feel like it’s not a lot of work. We made all three sections of our board in half and they represent South Korea and the Usa. It relates to our driving question because they sections are economic, cultural, and political changes. We are still planning it but we are deciding if we should make a music video or something else. A song called get with the times that relates to our driving question of how political, economic, and cultural changes converge together to create kpop and how it impacts other cultures today by showing how our society is coming together and becoming more open. Well of course in a music video you need settings, singing/rapping, choreography, and lyrics. We need to write more lyrics that in the song and coming up with the filming. Our collaboration is going great. There was only one set back with getting our Isd approved but other than that everything worked out.

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So since the last time I wrote about my topic what I found out was more about the cultural exchange between South Korea and the countries such as France, Mexico, The United States, China etc. Our driving question and topic has not changed but we did change our articles due to them not matching our topic. We changed them to match and connect more on cultural change while our old articles match how Kpop was affecting other countries. We are doing an interview because we feel it is necessary to ask them our question that could only be answered by an expert. I feel it is necessary because our question aren’t suitable for little 6 graders to answer and for us to do an experiment there possibly have to be another Korean war which I hope doesn’t happen, and an observation would be too simple for our kind of topic. What has been easy about this project is the fact that there is a lot of cultural exchange that has happened because of Kpop. So this makes articles very easy to find and also experts on this field. What has been harder has been trying to contact an expert. This has been hard because there is one person we really want to interview, her name is Eun-Young Jung but we haven’t been able to find her new email address so we can contact her and arrange an interview. Some things that we need to finish are finding more experts who we can contact, try contact Dr.Jung to so we can set an interview, and finish annotating which is soon. We need to make our board plan even better, make it have more meaning and connection to our topic, and to set more interviews with experts. The collaboration is going great, I know it is working well and I like that we decided to work on it together because Wendy, Faith, and I have a passion for Kpop that is making this project work.

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