Chapter1 Introduction
1.1 Background
South Korea is 99,720 square kilometers. Speaking of the land size, one couldfit four or five South Koreas into the land of Japan. And it is only 1/4 the size ofHeilongjiang province, China. With little natural resources, the country is inhabitedby 51 million people speaking Korean and writing Hangul which are quite uniquebut can be hardly spoken outside of the country. South Korea does not seem to haveenough reasons to be successful in spreading and taking advantage of its ownculture[1]. However, to everybody’s surprise, the cultural power of this little countrycan be felt throughout the globe and especially in many Asian countries including itsneighboring country, China.Since the turn of 21st century, South Korea has emerged as one of the majorexporters of culture. Now, the “Korean Wave” along with “K-drama” and “K-pop”is commonly used when people describe this explosive popularity. With thedevelopment of social networking services and video sharing websites all over theworld, the Korean wave could become stronger, sweeping over the Asian and evento the American continent. To be specific, Korean Wave(Hallyu; 韩流 in Chinese)is a newly coined word in mid-1990 by Chinese media outlets when Korean culture,which includes Korean pop song, TV drama, films, food, and fashion, began tosweep across China and Japan. Since then, it has increasing its scope to Europe andAmerica.The Hallyu has changed local sentiment and image toward South Korea and itsindustrial products which has not always been favorable in the past. Korean wavehelps people to dissociate Korea from cycles of poverty and political instability, andhelp them have the image of contemporary South Korean. In addition to these,Studies also have found that foreign customers who have watched Korean TV dramaare more likely to choose Korean products and once costumes are satisfied withKorean products they tend to form better image toward the country. Through KoreanTV drama and films many negative stereotypes were diminished among foreignaudience and it induces foreign customers to buy Korean products.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Subject
As seen above, the Korea Wave did bring many good things to the nation inboth directly and indirectly and more importantly through Chinese market and itsaudience, Korean contents market are enjoying growth and expansion. Interestinglythough South Korea and China historically share similar cultural background and itmakes easier for both people enjoy imported contents in spite of the language barrier,there are difference in their taste on cultural consumer goods. So this paper isdesigned to identify those factors.Each country has shown different responds toward Korean TV contents and theway they accept each TV programs varied country by country.[10]Lim comparedJapanese and Chinese group of viewers of Korean TV programs and their watchingmotives were different. To be specific, Kim (2007) has studied the acceptance level of one Korean hit drama, ‘Jewel in the palace’. In Taiwan, ‘Jewel in the palacereceived best reception among Korean dramas aired in the country, while ‘KoreaHerald’ created one of the great sensations among Japanese audience.[15]EachKoran TV drama causes different level of sensation and responds in differentcountries. It also implies the acceptance degree on each TV drama can be differentbased on each country and their watching motivation. In a rapidly changing marketand as consumers’ needs become more complicate, continued research on themotivations and which factor has the significance is necessary for the continuousgrowth of Korean cultural contents.[16]To maintain this explosive popularity whichin turns boosts many other economy sectors South Korean broadcasting stations andthese factors need to be analyzed and studiedMany experts say that K-cultural products’ future depends on Chinese marketand Chinese audience acceptance degree. Even though Korean contents market isreflecting this trend, as one way to make it suitable for Chinese audience recentlyseveral dramas producing companies have begun to export program formats orundertake cooperative production with Chinese producers.It is no exaggeration to say that the success of our industries depends on howthey approach the Chinese markets. In particular, our broadcasting industry excelsChinese counterpart apparently. Korean broadcasting companies have technologyand China has the market. Now producers should figure out what factors affectChinese people’s preference on South Korea’s dramas both in consumers’ aspectand its distribution so that they can make the best of this opportunity. Some ofKorean TV dramas enjoyed amazing popularity in China but not every TV dramawas successful as the marketers expected. Generally the Korean drama exports areled by several excellent and well-made hits like, ‘Jewel in the palace’, ‘My lovefrom another star’, ‘The descendants of Sun’, etc. and there had been and gap ofseveral years, or years of absence until the next hits appeared.This paper focuses on this phenomenon and tries to find influential factors inthe watching motivations and to analyze the relationships between satisfaction andintention to continue to watch (which will be referred to as ‘loyalty’ later in nextchapters) wishing Korean content industry would effectively and efficiently marketits production.
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Chapter2 Research Framework and Hypotheses
2.1 Research Framework
This study investigates the impact of Chinese audience satisfaction on viewers ’loyalty (repeat viewing intention and intention to spread word of mouth) in the cityof Harbin, located in the northeast side of mainland China. Based on the in-depthliterature review and the existing theoretical stream, this research proposes a modelof watching motives, satisfaction, and loyalty for more comprehensive model toassess the influence among those factors. The research model is represented inFigure 2-1, while the research hypotheses developed from theoretical factors areproposed in the following section.
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2.2 Hypotheses
Based on the previous literature covered in section 1-3 and the research modelabove, three hypotheses have been drawn. 1) Watching motives (cultural interest,cast of star actors and actresses, social factor, and good quality) will have a positiverelationship with satisfaction. 2) Watching motives will have a positive relationshipwith viewers’ loyalty. 3) Satisfaction will have a positive relationship with viewers’loyalty. In this chapter previous literature and studies on which the hypothesis is based are described.Watching motivation has been attracting many scholars’ and practitionersattraction. KISDI conducted a survey in 2015 targeting Chinese audience watchingKorean TV drama and variety shows (and additionally k-pop situation in Chinesemarket was surveyed too). Significant and meaningful factors were identified.According to the analysis, as long as Korean TV drama is concerned, Cast of staractors and actresses was chosen as the strongest motivation, followed by goodquality factor. Besides those two factors, cultural interest, favorable image towardKorea, social factor, and cultural proximity were also found to be influential aswatching motives.[3]42-45Im and Park(2011) identified five watching motivations of Chinese andJapanese university students; Curiosity on culture, good quality, cultural proximity,cast of famous actor and actresses, and social factor. The result shows that Chineseuniversity students’ watching motive and that of Japanese were not exactly the same.Regarding cast of famous actor and actresses, Chinese audience were more sensitivewhile Japanese respondents were found to be more affected by good quality. Besidesthose two, the rest of factors showed similar statistical outcomes.[65]There are many researchers who have investigated the link betweenmotivations and satisfaction. Satisfaction is highly affected by motivations andexpectations customers or viewers have. That is why satisfaction was studied in linewith motivations. As said above, many scholars focused on motivation as one way togive shape to the concept of satisfaction.
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Chapter3 Methodology........ 25
3.1 SAMPLE AND DATA COLLECTION.......... 25
3.2 PROCEDURE OF DATA COLLECTION ...... 25
3.3 GENERAL ANALYSIS INFORMATION...... 25
3.4 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN AND MEASUREMENT OF VARIABLES .......... 26
3.3.1 Watching motives ........ 26
3.4.2 Loyalty.... 27
3.4.3 Watching satisfaction.......... 27
3.5 SECTION SUMMARY....... 31
Chapter4 Data analysis and discussion .........32
4.1 DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF RESPONDENTS AND THEIR KOREANTELEVISION DRAMA EXPERIENCE ....... 32
4.2 RELIABILITY TEST......... 34
4.3 VALIDITY ASSESSMENT......... 35
4.4 CORRELATION COEFFICIENT..........37
4.5 HYPOTHESIS TEST ........ 37
4.5.1 Watching motivation to satisfaction ........ 37
4.5.2 Watching motivation to Loyalty ....... 38
4.5.3 Satisfaction to Loyalty........ 39
4.6 DISCUSSION AND FURTHER STUDY ...... 41
4.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY......... 42
4.8 SECTION SUMMARY....... 43
Chapter4 Data analysis and discussion
4.1 Demographic Characteristics of Respondents and theirKorean television drama experience
Approximately 250 Chinese college students and some other random samples(both enrolled students and employed members of the same institutes) fromlanguage institute were asked to participate in the survey. A total of 229respondents agreed to fill out the questionnaire. However, 12 questio nnaires werefound to be unreliable as some of the respondents failed complete the fullquestionnaire items. Thus, a total of 217 questionnaires were used in the analysis.Of the total surveyee who completed the whole survey (N = 217), 30.9% (n =67) were male and 69.1% (n = 150) were female. The age of respondents wereranging from a teenager to 50 years of age. The largest age group was 21-30 (seetable 5-1).There was only one teenager respondents among the respondents (n= 1,0.5%).Twenty-point-seven percent (n = 45) of respondents were between 11 and 20years of age. Sixty-eight-point-seven percent (n = 149) were between 21 and 30years of age. Six-point-nine percent (n = 15) were between 31 and 40 years of age.Three-point-two percent (n= 7) were between 41 and 50 years of age, while norespondent among the sample population indicated that they were 50 years or olderthan that (see table 5-1).Of the total number of respondents who reported their education level0 (N= 217), 0.5% (n = 1) of the respondents was elementary school student and2.8% (n = 6) were high school students, 5.5% (n = 12) were community collegestudents, 77.4% (n = 168) were associate’s or Bachelor’s degree, 13.8% (n = 30)were Master’s degree or above. Demographic characteristics are available in Tablen. below(see table 5-1).
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Conclusion
Based on the previous studies, research model was developed and threehypotheses were proposed. (H1 and H2 are pided into four separate subhypotheses. So This study had 9 hypotheses (H1(4)+ H2(4)+H3(1)=9). As seen inchapter 4, except one hypothesis 1-3, every hypothesis was supported.To be specific, the result shows that ‘good quality factor’ has the mostsignificant influence on Chinese audience’s satisfaction and loyalty intentiontoward Korean television drama. Producing company would have to put moreemphasis on Good quality to satisfy Chinese audience. Now, ‘Cast of Stars’ factorcannot guarantee the success of Korean TV drama. More and more Chineseaudience assesses Korean TV drama based on the quality not based on whetherfamous actors or actresses appear or not. Previous studies have argued thatChinese audience Satisfaction on Korean TV drama depends on the cast of sta ractors or actresses, but the result shows that the motives and factors that affectChinese audience satisfaction and loyalty is changing. This can be reflected whendeveloping marketing strategies on selecting and exporting Korean TV drama toChina.Social factor has not been found to have a positive relationship withsatisfaction. The result can be understood that Chinese audience is no longerwatching Korean TV drama out of social factor, and inpidual viewer are lessaffected by social factor. This result is also different from the previous studies.Thus, it can be concluded that Chinese viewers have become less sensitive towords of mouth and what people around them say about a certain kind of KoreanTV drama. This result also reinforces the adopted hypothesis 1-1. More and moreChinese audiences are affected by quality of the program not by words they haveheard from people around them. It also suggests that word of mouth would notcarry much weight with consumers’ purchase intention of cultural products, that is,in other words, when Chinese audience’ makes a decision on Korean TV dramathey would watch, they are less likely to be affected by word of mouth.Another interesting finding is that every watching motive has a positiverelationship with Loyalty. This can be understood that if Chinese audience come tohave watching motivations in any way, they are likely to develop loyalty towardKorean TV drama. This finding can be also reflected when marketers makestrategies to promote Korean TV drama in Chinese contents market.
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References (abbreviated)