Thailand comes third among countries craziest for K-pop
Thailand was third only to India and the United States among countries whose media most closely followed Korean pop culture last year.
The country carried 461 news articles, both offline and online, related to K-pop topics, ranking third after India and the US. India had 905 pieces and the US was found to have 769 articles.
The figures were compiled in an annual survey of about 680,000 foreign news stories and online articles posted during a 12-month period between October 2023 and September last year.
The survey was jointly carried out by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, and the Korea Cultural Information Service Agency. It was recently released by Yonhap news agency.
By topic, 37% of the stories in Thailand were about entertainment such as K-pop bands, second only to India where 41% of the articles were about the issue. Most stories in the US and Canada were about Korean foods.
Supergroups BTS and Blackpink dominated the stories about K-pop in Asia, according to the survey.
The boy band and girl group are hugely popular for Thais with fan groups such as Army for BTS. Fans of Blink, with Lisa Manobal among the members, are known as Blink.
K-pop mania is part of the Korean Wave, or soft power called Hallyu in Korean. It encompasses music, movies, drama, literature, culture, tourism and food, among other aspects.
Soft power earned the East Asian country US$13.2 billion (452 billion baht) in 2022, and the government hoped to achieve $25 billion by 2027, according to South Korean media outlets.
Source – Bangkok News
