March 15, 2023
SEOUL – A majority of Koreans and foreigners believe that Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, is likely to continue riding the tide of globalization for a long time to come, according to a recent Corea Image Communication Institute survey aimed at probing people’s views on popular topics.
The CICI’s multiple-choice survey, titled “AI, ChatGPT and Hallyu,” involved 471 participants — 257 Koreans and 214 foreigners who either visited or resided in Korea. More than 60 percent of the participants were in their 30s.
More than 80 percent of Koreans and foreigners answered that they expect the global popularity of Korean pop culture to continue for more than 10 years, while 9.7 percent of Koreans and 13.1 percent of foreigners answered that “Hallyu will stay strong for the next five years.”
When asked about Korean pop culture’s most symbolic component, over 90 percent of all respondents selected “K-pop,” followed by “Korean dramas” which was chosen by 75.5 percent of Koreans and 73 percent of foreigners. Respondents were presented with multiple options to choose from, including “Korean films,” which came in third, selected by 37.7 percent of Koreans and 39 percent of foreign participants.
Both Koreans and foreigners agreed that BTS, the K-pop superstar boy band, is one of the first names that come to mind when they think about Korea, followed by Son Heung-min of the Tottenham Hotspurs and the K-pop girl group Blackpink.
Respondents were also asked to select the questions they would most like to posit to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot which has recently been dominating the headlines. Koreans (83.3 percent) chose to ask about “Korea’s future,” while 94.9 percent of foreign respondents wanted to ask about “Korea’s tourist destinations.”
While 44 percent of Koreans answered that they have talked about Korea with ChatGPT, the survey noted that only 9.8 percent of foreigners had used the AI chatbot for Korea-related conversations.
The topic of “Korea’s future” ranked third for foreigners at 16.8 percent, following “Korean food” at 28 percent.