Media Dependency Theory Case Study

1.1 Background of study.

In late 90’s, South Korea has come out with the introduction of new word, which is ‘Korean Wave’ to symbolize the higher level of acceptance towards its culture. At first stage, ‘Korean Wave’ is making it step by introducing K-dramas in East, South and Southeast Asia. Along with changes, it slowly develop into a new global phenomenon that is Korean Pop or literally known as (K-pop) a music videos through You tube channel.

Now, in this 21st century, South Korea has become main trader of its popular culture and had already defeating Western countries like United States and United Kingdom. Taken from www.economist.com, it stated that The Economist (2014) has said that South Korea has become Asia foremost trendsetter. This statement indicate that South Korea has making it entertainment sector as one of its way to enhance the country’s economy besides making it as world’s leading pop culture exporter.

The globalization of K-pop is assist by effective medium that we called as social networking and video sharing platform such as You tube.

Researcher use media dependency theory as it is a mass communication theory that seeks to explain the long term effects of media on the audiences and a society. Dependency theory conceives of dependency as a relationship in which the fulfillment of one party‘s needs and goals is reliant on the resources of another party. The main focus of this theory is the relationship between media and its audiences. The usage of uses and gratification in this research as it is one of the earliest theories that postulate the audience to be active. This theory is developed by Elihu Katz and Jay Blumler and the key elements in this theory are the uses of the media, and the gratifications produced by those uses. The audience is project to be “goal-directed in its media-use” as their main goal is to satisfy their different