Blog 5

1) Progress report - How many interviews did you do so far? And/or how many materials (i.e. media texts) did you research, and how did you research on the texts – textual analysis, genre study, etc.?

I have finished all the interviews already. There are 4 interviewees having different employment status and gender, but all of them are ages in 20-24. I have totally asked around 14 short questions in each interview (7 of them are about the feature of the ways of interviewees in the Korean wave, another 7 are about the trend of them to purchase Korean products.) The findings from interviews had been noted clearly by writing an exhaustive table. A simple rating has been done for separating the extent of interviewees addicted to Korean wave.

A preliminary analysis have worked, an obvious purchasing pattern have shown in two exceeding results from the two male interviewees. Now, I am working with the genre and contents of the Korean shows that the interviewees have watch, to find the ‘frameworks of knowledge’ in decoding of them. After that, the prices of the product that the interviewees have / wanted to purchase would be found for studying the purchasing state of their different economic status.

2) Preliminary findings – What do you discover up till now? (For example, what are the commonalities amongst the texts/interviews?) How do your findings help you answer your research question?  

The first finding is the frequency of females to watch Korean drama is obviously higher then males. From the result of the interviews, girls spending more time to watch Korean dramas (watching around the clock at holidays or watching at every working day) while boys watch them passively (watching only while extremely bored). In addition, girls are always focusing on the latest Korean drama while boys only know some extremely hot drama, such as ‘My Love from the Star’.

Secondly, the extent of touching Korean wave is influence the level of teenagers to purchase Korean product directly. One of the male interviewee loves Korean entertainment show, K-pop music and follow all the news of his idols. He shows his deep love to Korean culture from his way to purchase Korean product, also the desire of him to visit Korea and learning Korean. Another male interviewee knows nothing about K-pop, and he watches Korean dramas and entertainment shows rarely. He shown his lack of interest to Korean products in his speech, ‘My old Samsung smart phone is the only one Korean product I can come up with.’

Student number: 10585624

Student name: Tsang Cheuk Wah, iCa

Blog 4

Research topic:

How do Hong Kong teenagers consume Korean dramas and tie-in products?

Literature review

Article 1: Korean wave as a factor on Taiwan's entertainment, consumer behavior, and cultural identity: A case study about “My Love from the Star” (Link)

This article using Korean drama “My love from the Star” as reference, studies the factors of Taiwanese from Korean wave. It tells that positive reputation for all Korean products have generated through Korean drama. Lots of audience would imitate the fashion of the actors from the Korean drama. Author point out that the economy influences of Korean drama should not be underestimated.

Article 2: The Korean Wave: Who are behind the success of Korean popular culture? (Link)

This article analyzed the Korean wave from entertainment show, movie, and K-pop music and TV drama. Korean wave was view as a popular culture in the thesis. It is also telling Korean pop culture is a “hybrid culture” between East and West. In the part writing about Korean drama, there are details numbers and information.

Research progress report

Different works are doing as preparation of my research project.

-     I have found that there are several common ways for Hong Kong people to watch Korean TV drama.

(1)  Watching on local television channel is a way to watch Korean TV drama offline. Local television channel broadcast the drama with Cantonese dubbing. And the drama usually are not the latest drama that Korean TV channel releasing. Local TV channel broadcast the Korean drama in the midnight every weekdays, one episode a time. The episode of drama with dubbing will be uploaded to the official website of the Local TV channel after they have broadcasted. Hong Kong people can visit to the website and review the drama online.

(2)  Hong Kong people can also watch Korean TV drama on website and Application. Latest episode will be uploaded with Chinese subtitles on the next day of the drama broadcast on Korean TV. Viewer can watch any Korean drama they wants in any time once it’s uploaded online. They can skip or repeat watching every scene while they want to.

I am going to calculate the numbers of website and Application Hong Kong people can use to watch Korean drama. Number of new Korean drama broadcasting on Korean TV channel would also be calculated.

-     On the other hand, I am looking for interviewees for the depth-interview. The daily schedule of them is one of my considerations as I have to meet them face-to-face, and maybe I have to interview with them more than one time if there are some supplement I want to add in the project.

Questions for the depth-interviews are preparing. I am having a study about encoding and decoding model, ready for understanding the meaning behind the answers of my interviewees. Hoping it can helps me to ask some focused questions immediately while I find something interesting to my interviewees.

Reference

1.     Chang, J. C. (2015). Korean wave as a factor on Taiwan's entertainment, consumer behavior, and cultural identity: A case study about “My Love from the Star”. Journal of Human and Social Science Research; Vol, 6(02), 074-079.

2.     Tuk, W. (2012). The Korean Wave: Who are behind the success of Korean popular culture?.

Name: Tsang Cheuk Wah, iCa    

HKU SPACE Student Number: 10585624

Blog 3

What is the refined research question that you are setting out to answer? (Please be specific in your research topic)

My topic would be change to “How do Hong Kong teenagers consume Korean dramas and tie-in products?” as the old one was too hard to do in a small –scale research. Now my research would be focus on the situation that teenagers consume Korean dramas and tie-in products. Teenagers will be separate to different groups by gender and age, for comparing the findings if there are any differences between them.

My research would be revolve around in the following key questions, for guiding me to search information and setting questions for questionnaire and interviews.

1. How many ways can Hong Kong teenagers consume Korean dramas and tie-in products?
2. To what extent Hong Kong teenagers watching Korean dramas?
3. To what extent Hong Kong teenagers consume Korean tie-in products?

How does this develop themes and debates explored within the lectures of this module?

My project is relate to popular culture that I have learnt in the lectures of this module. We can see how the Korean to present themselves to foreigner (Hong Kong people). And we can know the extent of Korean culture affecting Hong Kong teenagers by knowing about the trend and attitude of them to look upon Korean products and dramas.

What critical methodologies are you going to use? How are you going to produce the evidence you’ll need to answer your research question?

1.       Rough statistics the ways of Hong Kong teenagers watching Korean dramas and consume tie-in products.

2.       Having questionnaire with 40 teenagers of Hong Kong by Google survey.

3.       In-depth interviews with 6 teenagers of Hong Kong (3 male and 3 female, with different ages) face-to-face.

Name: Tsang Cheuk Wah, iCa    

HKU SPACE Student Number: 10585624

Research Project: Statement of Intent

Research Topic

I would like to study about the Korean culture influences in Hong Kong in my final project. The topic of my research would be “How do Korean TV shows affect Hong Kong people to consume Korean product? ”

For making a clear path of the research, there are 3 key research questions. All of the questions in the questionnaire, interview, and scholar articles I search would be revolve to these 3 key questions.

1.    To what extent Hong Kong people like watching Korean TV show?

2.    What kinds of Korean goods does Hong Kong people buy?

3.    Why do Hong Kong people buy Korean goods after watching Korean TV show?

Introduction

Korean culture is popular in Hong Kong is these years. It is because Hong Kong people can reach Korean music and TV show in local TV channels and there are many sources on Internet translated to be Chinese subtitle. Hereafter, lots of Korean goods such as food and clothing become popular in Hong Kong.

This research aims to study the trend of different groups of Hong Kong people watching Korean TV shows, including entertainment shows, music programs and drama. And understand the mindset of different groups of people while they watching Korean TV shows. Thus, consider the trend of different groups of people consumes in Korean goods.

I expected my research find that Hong Kong people buy Korean food after watching Korean entertainment programs and drama, such as noodles, or consider visiting Korean while they are planning to travel. Ladies would consume on Korean cosmetic. Teenagers would follow Korean idols outfit, buying their clothing and the products of idols (like CD and poster). Some of teenager may take parts in Korean language classes, even planning to study abroad to Korean or apply to be Korean singer trainee.

If the research can find that Hong Kong teenagers has follow Korean idol excessively to influences their normal living, I would suggest some ways for them to ponder deeper before purchasing Korean products. Avoiding they feel regret after the craze of Korean culture.

Proposed methodology

I would use both qualitative research and quantitative research to find information for my project. First, online questionnaire will be setting for collecting masses people views. I decided to have 50 local respondents, around 15 persons in each group (students, working people and middle-aged). Then, I would pick 1-2 respondents in each group that has left their contact email or number on the survey. I will contact them to have deeper interviews, for making the research more comprehensive.

Student number: 10585624

Name: Tsang Cheuk Wah

Research Diary 1

Media and culture is different with other subjects, because technology is keep improving and the usage of in is changing by the transition of time. The media that everyone use in their daily life would be different, such us teenager would access to the Internet but elderly would not. Also, everyone may have different bearing and notion for media, so that is why there are no any absolute true for this subject. Therefore, for a deeper study in media and culture, academic research is needed to fine the scholar article and theory which is fitting with our topic, and also get the firsthand data from interviewee.

There are two ways of finding information for academic research, qualitative research and quantitative research.

1. Qualitative Research

            Having penetrate deeply interview with representative individuals, and analysis some scholar article are the ways to do qualitative research. The target people in the research would be little, usually would be one to several individuals. The advantage of qualitative research is the study can be deeper as we can know more about the ideas and notion behind of the target. Although the range of the study would be slender but we can do it more focus. Unfortunately, the notion of the representative individuals may be different to masses people, the reliability of the research may not be high.

2. Quantitative Research

            You will see lots of numbers and chart in a quantitative. The data is usually collected by questionnaire. The target of quantitative research would be tens to hundreds of people. Studying the numbers can know the trends of the masses clearly. The advantage of quantitative research is the actual numbers have high reliability. And the range of the research can be wide. However, the research cannot be deep, as normal interviewee of questionnaire would leave the survey if the questions were too hard to answer.

            To compare these two research methods, there are not any one method is better the other. It is because they are setting for different kinds of research: Different the topic, the path of the research, the situation, and different research methods has to use. And the two methods can be use together in a research.

            For my own research, I am interested to study on the TV show in foreign, to know more about the transnational consumptions behind. For having a comprehensive study, I would like to use both the two research methods in my study. Having questionnaire with people in different age groups, and pick 1 or 2 participants from every age group to have a short interview with them. Furthermore, I would search some scholar article to support my study. For making my research can be trustworthy by the numbers, and also can be deeper as details can be got from the interviewee and scholar articles.

Student Name: Tsang Cheuk Wah, iCa