Laughing at Him or Laughing with Him? Framing Psy's "Gangnam Style"

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session III
  In Interactive Paper Session: Mass Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Psy’s “Gangnam Style” has broken a record with more than 2 billion views on YouTube by 2014. Despite this unprecedented worldwide phenomenon of an Asian pop singer in today’s West-dominated pop culture world, few scholars have delved into analyzing the issue. The current study attempts to conduct a comparative analysis of news coverage between the U.S. and the South Korean newspapers on the same pop culture phenomenon. The findings show that there are significant differences in terms of the tone, main points and journalists’ use of indicators and causes to describe the phenomenon. This study also suggests that the line of being an objective journalism is blurring when covering its national content in international settings.

Author

• Hyeri Jung, The University of Texas at Austin