(1) Four K-pop success factors (producers, casting, producing/promotion, and contents) demonstrate a statistically significant positive influence on national image. Four statistical programs (SPSS/SmartPLS/GSCA Pro/JASP) are used for regression analysis and structural equation modeling. To that end, 1247 global viewers (eight countries) who have listened, watched and searched for information on K-pop are surveyed. Our analysis was conducted within the theoretical frameworks of the SERVQUAL, Image Theory, and the Theory of Planned Behavior. In addition, this study seeks to validate the impact of the national image of Korea/SNS citizenship behavior, as defined in the foregoing, on tourist behavioral intention. This study aims to understand the impact of six success factors of K-pop on the national image of Korea perceived by global viewers and SNS citizenship behavior. Drawing on focus group interviews with Korean K-pop fans as well as Koreans who do not actively follow the industry, the article explicates how foreign K-pop idols alternately challenge and reinforce contemporary everyday South Koreans’ understandings of Koreanness. This article examines the domestic reception of these idols, exploring the tensions that emerge at the intersection of Koreanness, K-pop, and multiculturalism in South Korea today. The public visibility of these idols complicates South Korea’s image as an ethnically, linguistically, and culturally homogenous nation. In South Korea, public attention towards these idols has intensified as a result of the global success of multinational K-pop groups like Blackpink and NCT. But there has been little attention paid to how these “foreign” singers, now integrated into the Korean pop music industry, are received within South Korea itself. With K-pop’s tremendous growth transnationally, scholars have pointed to the industry’s inclusion of singers from different national and ethnic backgrounds, highlighting them as examples of successful glocalization. Thus, through the use of a qualitative methodology (Author 1 Pink, 2020), we intend to analyze the memorabilia items of seven Portuguese K-pop fans, in order to perceive the processes of identity creation, but also to denote the symbologies and meanings that are built around the items. Thus, in parallel to the fact that K-pop, as a musical genre, has a global character, it also highlights individual, regional and local aspects, mainly due to the variety of products that are produced, following a personalisation logic at the same time as we are facing a mass selling process. In fact, not only the CD, but also other memorabilia items that emphasize the creation of visual and identity narratives, in the sense that they are seen as a means to establish, maintain and cement a relationship with the idol.
Thus, contrary to the logic that emphasizes the loss of relevance of the CD, we tried to demonstrate that it - as an object of memorabilia and musical consumption - remains alive within the K-pop culture. This article aims a sustained approach in the perception of the processes of construction of - individual and collective - meanings and identities in relation to the musical (sub)genre K-pop. All three aspects of social change reinforce one another and fuel the aspirations of young Koreans to become the next K-pop idols. K-pop in Korea therefore illustrates three important aspects of social change: changes in social perceptions of the popular music industry, massive government support, and television stations actively recruiting new K-pop stars. While the K-pop revolution has a lot to do with YouTube and other digital means of distributing music on a global scale, Korean television stations are now eager to tap into the booming market by showcasing live K-pop auditions in order to circumvent declining television loyalty among K-pop fans, who prefer watching music videos on YouTube. The Korean government is also actively promoting Hallyu and K-pop, as though they constitute new export industries that could feed the entire nation in the twenty-first century. This new development has revolutionized the perception of the popular music industry in Korea’s post-developmental society, as Korean children dream of becoming K-pop idols rather than entering traditionally esteemed careers in politics, medicine, or academia. Korean popular songs, or kayo, are evolving from a musical genre created and performed only by Koreans into K-pop, a global musical genre produced and enjoyed by Koreans and those of other nationalities.
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