Page 21 - IJPS-6-2

International Journal of Population Studies

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Influence of the Olympic winter games

PyeongChang 2018 on the Korean

Wave: Comparison of perceptions

between Koreans and Americans

Eyun-Jung Ki *, Jeyoung Oh , Chan Souk Kim 3
1
2
1 Department of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication &
Information Sciences, The University of Alabama, Alabama, U.S.A.
2 Department of Communication Studies, University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, U.S.A.
3 Department of Advertising and Public Relations, Cheongju University, Republic of
Korea

Abstract: This study was designed to investigate the effects of the Olympic Winter Games
PyeongChang 2018 on South Koreans’ and Americans’ perceptions of the “Korean Wave,”
ARTICLE INFO or Hallyu. To achieve this purpose, a survey that included questions about the awareness of
Hallyu among South Koreans and Americans was conducted before and after the Olympics.
Received: April 19, 2020 The results show that the Olympics positively influenced Hallyu and that the effect was greater
Accepted: June 8, 2020 for Koreans than for Americans. After watching the Olympics, Koreans had a greater sense of
Published: June 15, 2020
cultural soft power and their perception of Hallyu’s influence on the United States than before
*CORRESPONDING AUTHOR they watched the Olympics. However, for American participants, enduring involvement with
Hallyu was the only factor that reflected a positive influence. This study demonstrates the
Eyun-Jung Ki, relationship between international mega-sport events and a host country’s perceived cultural
Box 870172 Tuscaloosa,
Alabama 35487-0172, U.S.A. values.
ki@apr.ua.edu
Keywords: Korean Wave; Olympics; Culture; Sports
CITATION
Ki EJ, Oh J, Kim CS. (2020) 1. Introduction
Influence of the Olympic winter
games PyeongChang 2018 on The Olympic Games are like a wagon moving on two wheels – sports and culture. The
the Korean Wave: Comparison founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, emphasized culture because
of perceptions between promoting mutual understanding among diverse nationalities and cultures was one of his
Koreans and Americans. principal goals. The combination of sports and culture in the modern Olympic Games
International Journal of became explicit in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympic Games, which were declared to be
Population Studies, 6(2):15-25.
doi: 10.18063/ijps.v6i2.1211 “without any conflicts” as the Cold War had recently ended. The cultural aspects aired
during the Barcelona Olympic Games highlighted the host city of Barcelona as a tourist
Copyright: © 2020 Ki et al. destination with beautiful culture and heritage. Since then, culture has been regarded as a
This is an Open Access article primary factor connecting those who participate in, watch, talk about, or think about the
distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Olympics (Nauright, 2004).
Attribution-Non Commercial Cultural value was deeply rooted in the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018
4.0 International License from its inception. The strong support of the government and the community was key to
(http://creativecommons.org/ South Korea’s selection to host the Games after two unsuccessful attempts since 2003
licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting (Kim, Choi, and Kaplanidou, 2015). Specifically, the combination of the local culture of
all noncommercial use,
distribution, and reproduction Gangwon Province, the host city for the PyeongChang Olympic Games, and the culture of
in any medium, provided the the host country played a major role in being selected to host the game.
original work is properly cited. It is impossible to discuss the Winter Olympics without discussing the cultural wave.
In the mid and late 1990s, the Korean Wave, or Hallyu, started in Japan and China. Hallyu

International Journal of Population Studies | 2020, Volume 6, Issue 2 15