Cultural Proximity and Genre Proximity: How Do Chinese Viewers Enjoy American and Korean TV Dramas?

Abstract

In China, watching foreign television dramas is not only an important means to know about the outside world but also a trendy lifestyle. With the images of modern lives and exotic flavors, foreign TV dramas satisfy the increasing tastes of petit bourgeois in China, who yearn for prosperity, comfort, fashion, and hedonism (Chan & Ma, 1996; Jiang & Leung, 2012; Xu, 2007). The popularity of foreign TV dramas reflects the cultural logic of media globalization, which is shaped in two competing processes-globalized demand of media industry and localized demand of indigenous cultures (Waisbord, 2004). Thus, Chinese viewers' consumption of foreign TV dramas is simultaneously global and regional (Chan & Ma, 1996). American and Korean dramas are, respectively, characterized with global and regional features and become the most popular in the Chinese market. To study local reception of foreign media products, prior research usually adopted a number of characteristics of media content and audience to predict local viewers' choices. They rarely came down to the actual viewing process in which viewers obtain enjoyment through their involvement with media content. This article, therefore, aimed to examine this transnational viewing process, in which Chinese audience watch American and Korean TV dramas. Specifically, cultural proximity and genre proximity were adopted to predict media involvement and enjoyment. A quantitative content analysis was conducted to study Chinese viewers' comments and ratings for American and Korean dramas at Douban.com, one of the largest social networking platforms in China. A cluster sampling method was used to obtain a sample of 16,440 comments from 411 TV dramas. Enjoyment Staying at the heart of media entertainment, enjoyment was used to describe the outcome of viewing experiences (Vorderer, Klimmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004). It was often defined as "a general positive disposition towards and liking of media content" (Nabi & Krcmar, 2004, p. 290). A number of theoretical approaches were adopted to conceptualize enjoyment. From the perspective of audience, for example, Nabi and Krcmar (2004) saw enjoyment as attitude. Their model introduced three dimensions of enjoyment-cognitive, affective, and behavioral, which influence one another. Besides audience, the model developed by Vorderer et al. (2004) took media content into consideration and summarized a number of prerequisites affecting enjoyment, which are listed under three major categories-users, motives, and media. The prerequisites include suspension, empathy, parasocial interaction, presence, interest, escapism, mood management, 825027S GOXXX10.

Transnational media consumption dissonance and ambivalent sexism: How American and Korean television drama consumption shapes Chinese audiences’ gender-role values

“…Such relativity reflects the media consumer's taste and preferences for cultural goods (Bourdieu, 1984). As two types of representative transnational media consumption, American dramas and Korean dramas provide different narratives and attract different audiences in China (Lu et al, 2019). This study found that gender, age, education background, and income exhibit different roles in predicting the transnational media consumption dissonance generated from American and Korean dramas in line with previous research (Jiang and Leung, 2012).…”

“…As American dramas displayed more women's independence, when individuals' watch more American dramas than Chinese dramas, agreement on GRIM would be further weakened by the reduction of benevolence sexism values. However, because of cultural proximity, the genderrelations depicted in Korean and Chinese dramas may share more similarity (compared with American dramas) (Lu et al, 2019). Hence, when individuals consume more Korean dramas than Chinese domestic dramas, the hostile and benevolence sexism values are strengthened, thereby fortifying their agreement on GRIM.…”

“…The development of media technologies has diversified individuals' television (TV) consumption patterns through the prevalence of streaming TV services, video websites, and mobile applications (e.g., Greer and Ferguson, 2015). Over the past decade, Chinese audiences have been consuming an increasing amount of foreign TV dramas, particularly American and Korean dramas being the main sources and accounting for more than 80% of China's imported TV dramas (cited from Institute of Cultural Industry of Peking University, 2017; also see Lu et al, 2019). Among existing media effects studies, the role of TV viewing in shaping the audience into standardized roles and behaviors has been widely discussed (e.g., Gerbner et al, 2002;Saito, 2007;Signorielli, 1990).…”

Negotiating Representation of Islamic Values on Korean TV Dramas Among Indonesian Muslim Youth

“…However, a study conducted by Ida (2008) shows that the concept of 'cultural proximity' has a role in driving the popularity of Korean drama in Indonesia. However, Lu, Liu and Cheng (2019) finds that cultural proximity could not explain the enjoyment of Chinese audiences consuming Korean TV Dramas. Ng and Chang (2019) confirms that Hong Kong audiences do not get a high impact from Korean TV dramas.…”

Hybridity, Confucianism, and Ambiguity in the South Korean Soft Power Model in Hallyu 1.0

“…Also, Kang et al (2014) found that, despite the popularity of K-drama, the majority of viewers of K-drama were those with lower income and education level or those with a higher education level but lower income, whilst a majority of viewers with a higher income still preferred American dramas. Lu et al (2019), in their study on Chinese viewers, found that cultural proximity explained involvement with K-drama while genre proximity and enjoyment belonged to American dramas.…”