Abstract
For a long time, politics and popular culture have been intertwined and inseparable. In America, this connection has reached an unprecedented height in the Trump era. For this reason, press and social media seized the interest of the audience and published a large amount of content that combined politics and popular culture during the US election and the coronavirus pandemic. In South Korea, the combination of politics and B-class culture has also become mainstream. When politicians want to seek the support of young voters, they will advertise themselves as B-class figures. This trend reached its peak during the 2012 election. The combination of politics and popular culture uses entertainment to disrupt serious politics and attracts new voters, especially the younger generation. It becomes a way to increase the approval ratings of a leader or domestic support for a government, especially during the 2020 legislative election. However, entertaining politics also has side effects. Too much entertainment will be counterproductive and arouse public resentment. In the paper, the author will explain how politics and popular culture work together by analyzing B-class representative character, Pengsoo’s political news from 2019 to 2020. Through sentiment analysis, Koreans are increasingly dissatisfied with the combination of Pengsoo and politics. Based on this analysis, this entertaining Korean politics is now facing both opportunities and challenges under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic and the dual contradictions of B-class culture itself.
Author Information
Cai Wantong, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
Paper Information
Conference: ACCS2021
Stream: Cultural Studies
This paper is part of the ACCS2021 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Wantong C. (2021) Opportunities and Challenges of Korean Politics With B-class Culture: A Case Study of Pengsoo’s Political News ISSN: 2187-4751 The Asian Conference on Cultural Studies 2021: Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2187-4751.2021.6
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2187-4751.2021.6
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