Last week, we were asked to read “Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis”. I read it and it started an idea rolling in my head on how e-mail etiquette has changed. E-mails because, it has become a pet peeve of mine, when I e-mail someone asking them several questions and when they respond, they have only answered one. I wanted to find out what the rules were and if they had somehow changed while I wasn’t looking. Turns out they didn’t but still people don’t follow those rules and there my start at rhetorical analysis on e-mail stopped. It was helpful for me to try out the process on something unrelated to my topic and see how far I could go. When I got to applying the rhetorical analysis on my topic, I found several different angles I could take but one caught my attention the most.
In looking for information on my topic, I stumbled upon another side to my topic that was not easy to see until I found the book “The Korean Wave: Korean Popular Culture in Global Context” by Yasue Kuwahara. My plan was to explain how the South Korean culture was affected by the Hallyu wave of K-Pop and K-drama but that could be relatively explained in a couple of pages. In the book, there is a chapter on Nostalgic Desire and Colonial memory which sparked my memory on an article I read about how South Korean fans felt about international fans. Then I realized that I could expand my topic to include South Korea’s rise as a Tech Giant and how with the Hallyu wave they are perceived on a global scale. In finding out more, I am realizing that while I may know more about K-Pop as it is today, I need to look back into its history and how the three leading entertainment companies (SM, YG and JYP) are on top. That in turns leads to finding out more about the growth of the country and its people. We’ll see what other information goodies I can find, that doesn’t lead to a Youtube binge on Korean variety shows and I’ll share them next week.