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K-Invisible: Why Technology and Tik-Tok Bring us no Closer to the Reality of Korea

What is the difference between reality and perceived reality? That is the core idea explored in this talk through a largely autobiographical and qualitative methodological approach. The argument put forward here is that despite the dramatically changing social environment, particularly in terms of technological advancements (with a specific focus on the growth of social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube), globalization, and South Korea’s rise as a cultural soft power, perceptions of Korea are often no closer to reality than they once were in the late 1980s. While social media and digital media communication have the ability to show us parts of the world that otherwise might remain hidden, they also encourage extreme and exaggerated views that present a distorted view of reality and we are left with (often damaging, and at best incomplete) generalizations. Moreover, using the concepts of stereotypes and gaslighting from sociological and psychological literature, the paper explores whether the continued popularity of exaggerated media representations of Korea can, in turn, affect the reality of the country. The concern is that the extreme hyper-real representation of the country, often created for social capital on media platforms, will ultimately become more influential than the lived experience of the tens of millions that inhabit the Korean Peninsula.