• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.328-338
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• 2014

Nowadays idol pop singers are popular with teenagers and adult. Accordingly idol pop singers take a picture of advertisement. because idol pop singers have a lot of fans who are willing to use advertising products. The purpose of the present study examined causes of idol worship and differences of causes of idol worship between in idol fans' 10's and 20's. And this article investigated idol fans' intention to purchase the merchandises advertised by idol. The result showed that idol's features, idol's evaluation, idol's ways of expression, romanticization of the idol had significant effect on idol worship. And there were no significant differences of idol worship between in idol fans' 10's and 20's. Also these causes of idol worship affected on Idol fans' intention to purchase the merchandises advertised by idol. In other words, idol worship was partially mediated the positive relation between by causes of idol worship and intention to purchase the merchandises.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.1-13
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• 2018

Idol goods refer to products such as cups and towels, or mementos or souvenirs that are manufactured to gratify the desires of fandom and may include the facial images of a star. The objective of this research was to explore the purchase behaviors of K-pop idol goods. Two hundred and sixty female idol goods purchasers in their twenties participated in an online survey. Cheering tools were the most often purchased idol goods, followed by idol slogans and dolls. To investigate the difference in idol goods' attributes they considered when shopping, respondents were divided into three purchase groups based on their annual total expense for purchasing idol goods. There were significant differences among light, medium and heavy purchasers in terms of goods' price, practical features, and scarcity. The light shopper group was majorly guided by price and practical features as compared to the other two groups, and heavy shopper group was majorly guided by scarcity attribute than in the other two shopper groups. The more they identified their favorite idols, the more they worked hard, the higher their income, the higher the expenses of investing in idol products, the more likely they were to repurchase idol goods. In term of post-purchase behavior of idol goods, most idol goods purchase by fans were stored rather than used, and few indicated that they purchase two identical idol goods for use and storage.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.559-575
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• 2021

The popularity of K-pop, the development of diverse media and communications, and rapid globalization are increasing consumers' attachment to celebrities. These celebrities, called "Human brand", have a growing impact on consumers. However, research on idol celebrities has been conducted mainly on teenagers. Furthermore, there are limits to the studies on consumers' attachment to idol celebrities who do not advertise specific products and intention to purchase products which are not advertised but related to the idol human brand. Therefore, this study has been conducted on 301 out of 400 adult women in their twenties to forties in Korea to examine the relationship between the characteristics of the idol human brand, attachment to the idol human brand, desire to imitate the idol human brand, desire to identify with the idol human brand and its fandom community, and the effect on purchase intention. For the statistical analysis, SPSS and AMOS were used. The study found that the characteristics of the idol human brand which are trust, professionality, social attractiveness, and physical attractiveness positively influenced attachment to the idol human brand. The attachment to the idol human brand positively affected the imitation desire toward the idol human brand, and the identification desire with the idol human brand, and to identify with its fandom community. Additionally, the desire to imitate and to identify with the idol human brand and its fandom community positively affected the intention. Furthermore, the relationships between all variables were found to have a significant mediating effect.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.291-302
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• 2020

Korean popular music industry, which is lead by "Idol group", has forsaken their fandom all over the world. Therefore, idol groups has become not only an artist but also the most influential people in the Korean economy. A global idol group with a strong fandom can earn more than a trillion-dollar by attracting their global fan's interest in Korea. In other words, it is considerably important to carry the idol to a successful conclusion. This study tries to expect whether the idols can be survived or not at a certain point after their debut by ANN, Decision Tree, Random Forest. We decide that certain point as the three-year and eight-year after their debut, because it is their break-even point year and the year after their average renewal of the contract. In addition, this study also explains which feature is the most important to their survival by feature importance and Logistic regression. In conclusion, features like the number of idol competitors, the number of debut members and the number of the genre are significant. These results shed light on the efficient management of K-Pop idol to improve industrial competitiveness.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.221-232
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• 2019

The uniqueness of the K-Pop 'idol' culture, which is a key area of its success, can be found not only through the acceptance of diverse cultures and the strengthening of the performance capacity, but also by the effective utilization of new technological environment. As a result, the Korean idol system, which is distinguished from the Japanese idol system, is established. And these systems are evolving with new technological environments. This paper examines the process of evolution of the Korean idol system that adapts to the technical environment through the case of the idol girl group 'IZ*ONE'. 'IZ*ONE' not only achieved rapid success by actively utilizing SNS and new media and producing interactive narratives, but also establishing stable expansion and homogeneity of fandom through interactive rituals. By comparing the evolution and achievement of such a system with the Japanese idol system, we will be able to present the factors of K-Pop success more clearly.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.71-84
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• 2011

This study is purposed to categorize external image types of Korean male idol stars, and to understand characteristics of fashion and beauty design for each type and through such, the study is meant to identify the various types of male image and to provide data of image making. As part of the empirical study, it selected well-known 15 groups of male idol stars who were active during February of 2008 and August of 2010, categorized the image types by their photographic data, and analyzed characteristics of fashion and beauty design for each type. In order to measure the degree of image types, a survey was also conducted. The image types of male idol stars, which were classified through a workshop by a group of image-related experts, were categorized with 6 types that are Elite, Urban Chic, Charisma, Rebellious child, Toy boy, and Homme Fatale. The six types of male idol stars have a great relation with the modern male trends and images, and that the male idol stars have been leading the trends and presenting the image by the public preference. In addition, as shown the above, the recent male image appears as a mixed image of femininity and masculinity, showing a complex aspect that does not dominates with one image, and that it was found out to constantly be changing in the flow of times.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.25 no.11
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• pp.1601-1612
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• 2022

As human brands, Idols, the central members of K-pop, are actively engaging in various industries based on the support of their fandoms, greatly impacting the national economy. In particular, due to the development of digital devices and technologies, they are active both online and offline, and idol avatars are a significant part of their activities across diverse contexts. Therefore, this study aims to categorize avatars used in various contexts and explore fandoms' perceptions according to each type. Based on case studies and literature review, idol avatar usage was categorized into products, supplier-led content, and interactive content, and accordingly, surveys and in-depth interviews were conducted. As a result, regardless of category, fandom showed a negative perception of idol avatar usage, as shown in the order of interactive content, supplier-led content, and products. Regarding human brand characteristics of idol avatars, attractiveness was evaluated higher than intimacy and likeability. However, the attachment to real-life idols showed a higher correlation with the characteristics of intimacy and likeability than attractiveness. This study is significant as it looked at the future directions of idol avatar usage by analyzing the fandoms' perception of avatar usage in the K-pop industry from a human brand perspective.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.1-18
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• 2021

Idol music, which began to gain huge popularity in the domestic music market in the mid-1990s, has become one of the major global contents thanks to the global popularity of K-POP. As a result, the Korean music market continues to grow, forming the world's sixth-largest music market, and domestic music agencies are focusing more on fostering idol groups and producing idol music. The global success of idol music is surprising, but this has resulted in the domestic music market being biased toward idol music. As a result of the study, it was confirmed that there are several problems with the phenomenon of being biased toward similar types of musicians and music content. First, just as trend-oriented cultural contents face the problem of life expectancy all the time, the "Korean Wave" is also forced to think in terms of identity and sustainability. Second, it was observed that only consumers of a certain age may cause cultural alienation of other age groups, and thirdly, various problems such as shrinking creative paths due to the size of the cost required for idol group production and the lifespan of idol musicians' art activities. This paper derives the reality of the domestic idol bias phenomenon through comparative analysis of the English-American music market and the domestic music market, which have had a profound influence on the global music market in popular music history, and verified the theory and results through an expert survey using the Likert scale. In addition, the problems caused by the idol bias phenomenon were considered based on the theory of cultural diversity, and improvement directions were also suggested to solve this problem.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.110-125
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• 2023

Virtual idol groups are a product of changes in cultural content and development of digital technology. The purpose of this study is to derive the characteristics of technical expression and fashion of virtual idol groups of Korean entertainment companies, and the significance of this study is to provide basic data for creating a new content business model for virtual idol groups. The research method of this study consisted of literature research and case analysis. Korean virtual idol groups 'K/DA', 'Aespa', and 'Eternity', which show the evolved business model of the entertainment industry through rapid advances in digital technology, were selected as the subject of case analysis for this study, and newspaper articles were searched by keywords and analyzed. As a result of the study, the technical expressions shown in Korean virtual idol groups were 'implementation of realistic content through interaction technology', 'delicate motion expression through motion capture technology', and 'convergence of information between the real world and virtual world through AR technology', 'provision of experience similar to reality by VR technology' and 'formation of cultural contents by Deep Real technology' were deriven. In addition, the characteristics of the Korean virtual guide idol group's fashion are 'marketing strategy through collaboration with fashion items', 'giving recognition as a digital fashion icon of real existence', 'creating a sensuous image as a fashion brand ambassador' and 'fashion style expression of the Z generation's sensibility'.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.157-167
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• 2015

This research studied how idol music popularity influences on equilibrium of ecosystem in Korean popular music market. Because most of media & press reported that idol music caused unbalance of whole market so this research issued it. Research method is borrowed production of cultural perspective of Peterson and subject of analysis is selected idol music from Melon weekly music chart(2000-2014), which is No. 1 digital music distributor. The result showed idol music did not bring unbalance of ecosystem structure in Korean polular music market and found it contributed diversity of music genre in music market by introducing various musical style all the more. This kind of untested information should not cause idol music production leading new Korean Wave to shrink. Government related organization has to do policy making based on verified fact in future and it should be handled as important matter for sustainable and expansive reproduction of Korean wave.