Research

Mood Board

Research Topics Ideas Mind-map:

Resources I will use to carry out my research

YouTube: I feel like YouTube would be the perfect platform to gain information about the K-Pop industry and their artists. There are a variety of YouTube channels that involves K-Pop. For example, there are YouTube channels where K-Pop fans edit a compilation video of their favourite K-Pop Idol/group so they can teach/show new and old fans some of their favourite Idol's  funny or comforting moments that would make their day better, sometimes they even show some videos where their Idols are being sincere and is being relatable to make the groups' fan and Idol relationship strengthen. There are also YouTube channels where the fans or experts analyse K-Pop MVs (music videos), the Idols' behaviour and personality; K-Pop TikTok compilations that are both entertaining and educational; they are also Korean music broadcast channels that have been uploading their videos on YouTube and this can include live performances of their latest comeback (new music/album that they have recently produce and is currently promoting) and interviews; there are also the K-Pop groups' personal YouTube channels that were made by their agency, this is where they show some of the behind-the-scene footage of their live performances, music videos or latest activities like a photoshoot for their new comeback album or a magazine that they are going to be featured in or them participating in special events like fashion walks, a drama/film that they might be starring in or Idol variety shows. The groups' channel also upload videos of their own variety shows that are organised by their agency, this could include them doing challenges and fun activities like going to a haunted house, a fun fair, completing mission at a water park, going on a holiday together and experience new stuff together while playing games to make it entertaining for the audience.

 

Koreaboo: Koreaboo is a K-Pop news outlet where is releases articles on the events that are happening in the K-Pop industry and sometimes Korea in general. I can use Koreaboo to keep up with the latest events that are happening regrading to the Idols and their groups.

 AllKpop: Just like Koreaboo, AllKpop is an American K-Pop news outlet where they release articles on the latest gossip in the K-Pop industry. Here, I can get information on maybe the same K-Pop but see the different mediation that AllKpop may have taken on in contrast to Koreaboo. I can also find articles that Koreaboo may not have made or discussed about.

BuzzFeed News: Buzzfeed News have a "K-Pop" section on the website where there is a mix between K-Pop quizes and K-Pop news. The new article contains mostly the opinions of the K-Pop fans and the people who are writing the articles who are also K-Pop fans or Korean Culture experts. 

 I have decided that I will be making a podcast for my FMP. My podcast would be touching on the subject of K-Pop and it's industry. The talk will include the social issues that are in the industry and debate whether it right to support K-Pop entertainment agency after knowing how they have treated their idols. My big question for my essay will be: "How has K-Pop gain so much popularity and to what extent has the idols have to sacrifice to achieve their life long dream?". 

History of Podcasts

Podcasts were known as 'audio blogging' back in the 1980s. People used podcasts to share their opinions and experiences via audio recording. Unfortunately, it was short-lived as the lack of means to distribute these recordings stunted the growth of the medium stalling it for another 20 years. In October 2001, Apple launched its first portable music player — The iPod. The iPod allows people to download audio blogs into an audio player as a MP3 file enabling it to be mainstream. 

In 2004, Adam Curry, former MTV video jockey, and software developer Dave Winer coded a program known as iPodder, enabling people to download audio blogs to their iPod. This sparked journalist Ben Hammersley to publish the now-iconic article about the dawning torrent of online radio, eventually coining the term ‘podcasting,’ joining the words — iPod and broadcast. From there, podcasting slowly but surely started to catch on. By the late 2004, the first podcast service provider, Libsyn.com (Liberated Syndication) emerged. Before the end of the year, the number of Google hits for the term ‘podcasts’ eclipsed 100,000. Hammersley’s coinage was here to stay.

• 2005 — George Bush becomes first President to deliver his weekly address in the form of a podcast
• 2005 — Podcast is declared “word of the year” by the New Oxford American Dictionary
• 2006 — Steve Jobs demonstrates how to record a podcast using Garageband during a keynote speech
• 2006 — Lance Anderson became the first podcaster to go on a live podcasting tour he called The Lance Anderson Podcast Experiment.
• 2007 — Ricky Gervais sets world record for the most downloaded podcast with an average of 250,000 downloads per episode in the first month
• 2009–2011 — Andrew Carolla’s podcast receives 59,574,843 unique downloads
• 2013 — Personal Audio sues high profile podcasters, claiming they have a patent on podcasting
• 2013 — Apple announces 1 billion podcast subscribers
• 2017 — Court rules against Personal Audio, declaring they did not invent the medium of podcasting and could therefore not claim royalties
• 2019–Spotify acquired Gimlet Media for $200 million, establishing itself as a major player in podcasting.
• 2020 — Joe Rogan, signs an exclusive podcast deal with Spotify worth $100m+

Similar Product analysis

1.  The Kpopcast

This podcast is laid out like a radio talk show, where they have a talk topic where the would have a discussion about and since they are talking about a music genre they would show play a bit of the song they are talking about during the podcast. The show has a very relaxed atmosphere and  has comedic elements in them. The target audience for this podcast are for people who are K-Pop fans of all ages as there are not really any type of inappropriate jokes. The podcast can also be listened by people who are new to the world of K-Pop or wants to learn more about the industry and it's music throughout the generations. However, they are moments where there might be unwanted disruptions and therefore caused the podcast to feel a little unprofessional. 

     2. Daebak Show with Eric Nam

The Daebak Show is hosted by a k-Pop artist and also TV persona, Eric Nam. This podcast show is more in a form of an interview with a little segment in the middle where they might play a little game with the celebrity they are interviewing. The listeners can listen to the podcast on Spotify but they also film the whole show and uploaded them on YouTube so the listeners can see what the idols are doing especially when they are playing a game or show any reactions. Eric Nam mostly speaks english throughout the whole show but there are times where he has to speak Korean to the idols as not all of the idols care able to understand or speak English fluently, so going to YouTube to watch the show may be easier for international fans/listeners.

Primary Research

I will use these answers to help me produce my podcast for my FMP. By collating opinions on certain topics I would like to include in my podcast, I can include in some of the people' opinions in my podcast and have a discussion around it. The first two questions are just some basic questions about the person who is answering the survey and gives me an idea on what my target audience is. The third question gives me an idea on what people's views on K-Pop already are and help me to create a podcast where I can clear up any misconceptions they may have received from K-Pop and discuss why they might have that kind of opinion on the topic. The fifth question tells me how many people are aware of the struggles the K-Pop trainees and idols may have to go through and can encourage me to pick on a topic that people may not have already heard about.

Essay

Question:"How has K-Pop gain so much popularity and to what extent has the idols have to sacrifice to achieve their life long dream?". 

I have picked this subject because K-Pop is a subject that I enjoy talking about and is very passionate in. As a K-Pop fan, I have seen many occasions where people are hating on the music genre and the idols themselves. In my opinion, I do not mind people not liking K-Pop as long their reasons are valid. For example, they might not like it because it is not their music style or if they feel like they didn’t like to listen songs in a different language; all those answers are okay and are all valid. However, some people are just end up hating K-Pop and the idols for no reason at all and I think the reason for it might be that they do not fully understand or appreciate the idol’s effort and where the K-Pop industry is the way it is today.

I will also be analysing the structure and effectiveness of similar podcasts, so that I can find out how podcasts that are talking about the similar subject that I will be talking about in my own podcast that I am going to produce for my FMP. 

Articles I have found that explore this issue is the documentary 'KPOP IDOLS: Inside the Hit Factory' on BBC. This is when they discussed how the South Korean culture have gained popularity so suddenly in 2019. The host is James Ballardie, who have visited Seoul, South Korea, to carry out his research. He did research on how the idols train, where they work and what they work condition is like by visiting the SM Entertainment HQ that is in the heart of the city. SM Entertainment is one of what the K-Pop fans called The Big 3 companies. ‘The Big 3’ are the entertainment companies that are known as the most successful and influential entertainment companies in the whole country: YG Entertainment, JYP Entertainment and, of course, SM Entertainment. SM Entertainment is said to have traditionally taken the lead in terms of size (number of artists) and revenue.

I have also looked at YouTube videos K-Pop fans have edited to do research on how K-Pop idols are represented online by their fans internationally and in South Korea. These videos are normally for comedic purposes, but it does help cause an image for the idols. Form the way I view these videos, the funnier and more relatable the idols are the more fans will support them and have a positive fan and idol relationship. When this fan and idol relationship spreads worldwide is when it starts to have an impact on the world. By the power of the internet fans can share these moments worldwide and that when it causes curiosity for people and that curiosity is what drawn people to learning about the group and explore more on the genre. There are many aspects as to why people would be drawn by K-Pop: it could be amazing rap flow that the idols might have, the cinematography of the music videos, complicated and synchronised choreography or the high rage of vocal capabilities of some idols. This fascination then can lead to YouTubers create content based on them. For example, Max Beaumont is a communication skills coach and he have been making videos on analysing different celebrities' personalities and communication skills ever since the COVID-19 global pandemic lock down. He has been reacting videos on western artists at first but then K-POP fans have been commenting for him to analyse the world-famous boy group's, BTS, communication skills in one of their interviews. He gladly obliged to the idea and made the reaction video and uploaded it. This video gained him more views count than any of his other reaction videos to western artists and celebrities. Beaumont then continued to make reaction videos with a mix of western artists and BTS. Not long after, he is then introduced to other K-Pop acts like Stray Kids, Tomorrow by Together (TXT), Blackpink, ATEEZ etc. After going through Max Beaumont's YouTube channel, I have noticed that his K-Pop reaction videos tends to have the most views and likes compared to his reaction videos on western artists. This then lead Max Beaumont to be able to make profit by creating a Patreon account where the viewers can pay for a subscription, which allows them to be able to view exclusive content like a longer version of his YouTube videos where he did a more detailed analysis on the idols or a reaction video that he never uploaded on YouTube or even a live reaction video where the viewers can joining the live and view a authentic reaction from him. This shows how the influence and popularity of K-Pop can even allow people to make a living for themselves and introduces the genre and industry to the people who are maybe not expected to even be interested in it.

By watching loads of different YouTube videos made about the development of K-Pop. I have learnt that most K-Pop idols are scouted randomly on the streets by the company's scouting team. Some may be scouted because of their outstanding visuals that captivated the scout team enough to convince them to take part in an audition. However, most idols have told some bizarre stories on how they got scouted. For example, an idol of K-Pop groups NCT and WayV that goes by the name Winwin told a story on how a casting manager approached him outside his school. Winwin was quite wary and gave the casting manager the wrong number on purpose. After a few more times an SM agent eventually ended up with his real phone number and a promise for an audition, which Winwin successfully passed. Another bizarre story of how idols are recruited is how ITZY's main dancer and rapper, Ryujin, was scouted at a popular K-pop group GOT7's first fan meet and when she went to the bathroom, she was approached by a JYP recruiter. She was asked by the recruiter to give her number. Although she was suspicious at first, Ryujin complied because she thought the recruiter looked cute. This shows that the method of recruiting new trainees is quite apprehensive, bear in mind that the trainees being approached by are all high schoolers and this can expose high risk factors for the young individual, especially when South Korea have high rates of cult culture and fake entertainment agencies that can either scam the trainees or kidnap them. 

Cult culture in South Korea works a similar way as how K-Pop agencies recruit trainees. South Korea has a history of religious cult organisations that have amassed wealth and influence. This is certainly a scary phenomenon, especially on vulnerable people that can have their trusting natures exploited.  The cult members are often seen hanging around the high street and quite forcefully ask passer-by if they can talk to them. They would often compliment them or tell them their fortune, which can cause the passer-by to feel closer to the secret cult member. The cult member then would then lead the passer-by to a building where they would do all the praying and worshipping and would tell the victim to do certain cult related things that they are not aware of. Some victims are lucky enough to recognise what was happening and might be able to get away but not so lucky for some. 

I think that looking at all this research I believe that K-Pop has gained so much popularity and will continue to do so because K-Pop covers so many aspects in the music industry and offers such a variety of genres that a lot of people can explore what they like and preferred. K-Pop also takes the world of cinematography seriously and make sure that their music video creates meanings, whether it's to tell a story about their concept or real life social/cultural issues. The fan service and big respect the K-Pop idols show their fans also creates a relationship between the artists and fans that not many western artists have achieved. Some say the K-Pop fans are toxic and too overly obsessed with the idols but to what I have seen and experienced as a K-Pop fan myself, it's safe to say that the fans simply wants to protect their idols and do whatever they can to support them because they know that the idols have gone through a lot of hardship and dark times to achieve their dream in becoming a successful idol or group. Some idols have started training at a very young age and it can take years for them to even debut, some don't even get to debut even after years of going through hardcore vocal training, dance lessons, strict diet, language lessons (Korean for international trainees, English and Japanese for Korean idols) and critical judgment. Most idols must also leave their family homes to be able to train because the companies are mostly based in the capital of Seoul, and since Korean wave are spreading globally many more young hopefuls would have to travel to a new country completely without having a very good knowledge about the cultural expectations of South Korea. The language barrier is also a big obstacle to get over for international trainees and this can cause stress for the or even develop a lot of mental health issues that can be hard to cope without being able to ask for help.

Additional FMP Research

Ident design

To learn how to draw digitally, I have looked at some of the videos from the two YouTube channels (Fungau and Kooleen). These two channels uploads tutorial videos for digital art beginners. I have taken some of the tips from the videos and experiment different techniques on Illustrator. However, since my identity will be made using Illustrator, I have to explore different ways I can replicate to the same effects that are meant to be replicated because the tutorials are mostly for the softwares that are meant to be used for digital art like Procreate and Ibis Paint.

Target audience

I am planning to make my podcast humorous as well as informative for my audience. I also talked in a casual tone so it makes the listener feel like they are part of a conversation. Since my target audience is mostly those who are the same generation and interests as me I also added some references that my generation might only understand. Also since my podcast episode will be covering on the topic of K-Pop and as a K-Pop fan myself I made sure that the things I talk about are entertaining for K-Pop fans and include some references or jokes that K-Pop fans can relate to. 

K-Pop fans are stereotypically viewed as cringey Korean-wannabes who are incredibly toxic towards other fandoms or the public in general. Therefore not a lot of people tend to be very judgemental towards them and treat them as outcasts. As both me and my partner consider ourselves as outcasts ourselves, we decided that it would be fitting if we can talk about the topics that we are interested in so the audience is able to relate to us. 

I have decided to talk about the social issues in the K-Pop industry. This topic is a little bit controversial among the K-Pop fandoms and lots of different opinions can be formed around this topic so I made sure to carefully and respectfully share my opinions and post this on YouTube so people can share their opinions in the comment section which allows the audience to be interactive with the show and other K-Pop fans or new K-Pop fans and allow ourselves to educate each other.