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Television Drama, Narrative Engagement and Audience Buying Behavior

The Effects of Winter Sonata in Japan

Department of Communication at the University of Louisiana - Lafayette, kimcomm{at}louisiana.edu

Arvind Singhal

Research and Outreach, Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies at the University of Texas - El Paso, asinghal{at}utep.edu

Toru Hanaki

Communication Studies in the Faculty of Foreign Studies at Nanzan University, Japan, hanaki{at}nanzan-u.ac.jp

Jennifer Dunn

School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, jd356805{at}ohio.edu

Ketan Chitnis

UNICEF in New York, kchitnis{at}unicef.org

Min Wha Han

School of Communication Studies at Ohio University, mh947404{at}ohio.edu

In the past few years, the popularity of Korean television dramas, songs and movies has skyrocketed in countries of North and Southeast Asia. This huge wave of Korean pop culture is referred to as the Hanryu (the Korean wave). One of the most significant trendsetters of the Hanryu was the Korean television drama Winter Sonata, which was remarkably popular in every Asian country where it was broadcast. The present article investigates the perception of Japanese audience members toward Winter Sonata’s narrative and how this perception influenced their buying behavior of Winter Sonata memorabilia, such as clothing, cosmetics, DVDs/CDs of the program, trips to Korea and the like. Employing both qualitative and quantitative methods, this study finds that the popularity of the drama was generated by Japanese audiences’ engagement with its narrative. Further, the audience perception of the narrative’s quality was found to predict whether or not they purchased a Winter Sonata product.

Key Words: audience behavior • global media • Japanese economy • Korean media • Korean wave • narrative • television effects • Winter Sonata

International Communication Gazette, Vol. 71, No. 7, 595-611 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1748048509341894


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