Banal Koreanness: National imagery in multicultural-themed television shows

Abstract

This article analyses how three South Korean multicultural-themed reality television programmes discursively produce Koreanness. We ground our study in scholarship on ‘othering’ and the notion of banal nationalism (Billig, 1995) and conduct a thematic analysis of the shows. Our findings show that the programmes adopt a Korea-foreign dichotomy that becomes a lens through which viewers can vicariously experience the existence of a unified South Korean culture. We argue that the juxtaposition of a Korean ‘us’ against a foreign ‘them’ precludes imagining a more pluralistic South Korea – even as the programmes ostensibly celebrate South Korea’s increasing diversity.