Medina 1

Chris Medina
Zack De Piero
Writing 2
15 February 2016
K-pop in Three Different Genres
As claimed by the title of Time magazine article South Koreas Greatest Export: How
K-Pops Rocking the World, the phenomenon known as K-pop, or Korean pop music is very
prominent in world culture. Addictive and contagious, K-pop has successfully spread from its
native South Korea to many corners of the globe. Tracing its roots and rise to its success will be
difficult as K-pop is a topic that could be dissected in various ways. Because of this, writers are

Commented [1]: Isn't that the truth! Everything's so

complex!

able to pick out different factors of K-pop and write about them in different styles. This paper
will analyze how K-pop is discussed through the scholarly article Globalization of cultural
products: a webometric analysis of Kpop in Spanish-speaking countries, the dissertation
Reappropriating Desires in Neoliberal Societies through KPop, and Time magazine article
South Koreas Greatest Export: How K-Pops Rocking the World. Although the different texts
talk about the same general topic, the authors approach their papers differently. To properly
execute their purpose, the authors use distinct moves to successfully express their message to
their audience.
The scholarly article Globalization of cultural products: a webometric analysis of Kpop
in Spanish-speaking countries by Xanat Vargas, and Han Woo Park is formatted as a hybrid
between an essay and a lab report, providing both qualitative and quantitative data. As a
scholarly article, it begins with an abstract to give the readers a brief introduction to what the

Commented [2]: I want more direction, Medina. What,

exactly, are you going to be arguing here? And what
specific points are you going to use to make that case?
What about the conventions within this genre will you
be emphasizing? And what about moves? A
The introductory paragraph is so crucial *for readers*
because it provides them with the expectations for your
whole piece. The more direction you give me, the
more focused *my reading* will be --- and the more I'll
be able to take away from your piece.

Medina 2
whole article will discuss. Vargas and Park then proceed to give background information of their
experiment with an introduction. Adding to the introduction, the article provides a literature
review for more background information, including the definition of K-pop and its origins. As
said in "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Graff and
Birkenstein, Rather than assume that audiences will know why their claims matter, all writers
need to answer the so what? and who cares? questions up front (93). The authors accomplish
this by including a section in the introduction titled Social and scientific value, which states the
benefits the study would contribute to the community. Both academics of the Communications
field, Vargas and Park associated K-pop to factors such as the social effects of music and

Commented [3]: Beautiful! Excellent way to tie in the

course readings to how they can help us better
understand/appreciate the scholarly piece.

language while focusing on the social network service, Twitter. Moving on to the experiment,
the authors provide research questions the experiment hopes to answer. Methods, and tools used
for data acquisition is then given which leads to the results of the experiment. For visual aid, the
article provides graphs and figures to represent the quantitative data. To wrap up the experiment,

Commented [4]: Well, what are they? What's the

experiment? What was being isolated? And what RQs
were posed?
What kind of insights do these give us into how they
"see" K-Pop?

the article presents a discussion which explains the results of the experiments. Also included is a
limitations and future research section, stating any instances where the experiment could have
been done better. Like how Anne Lamott said in her book Bird by Bird about how all good
writers write shitty first drafts, the articles limitations and future research section serves to
provide credibility to the authors. By showing that they are capable of errors while knowing how
to pinpoint them, humanizes them and builds a connection between the writers and the readers.
To build on to the ethos, a references section is added last to provide the sources of the
information borrowed.
The second academic text Reappropriating Desires in Neoliberal Societies through

Commented [5]: Great! Nice insight here. However,

I'm wondering -- why are you telling me this? Is this a
part of your main argument?
(It certainly could be, but I don't think you mentioned
ethos/credibility in your thesis statement.)

Medina 3
KPop is a masters thesis by Daisy Kim for the degree of Master of Arts in Asian American
Studies. As a scholarly text, it shares the same features as the previously discussed article. It
begins with an abstract and also contains an introduction, describing what K-pop is. However,
since it is a dissertation, it is much longer than the article. It contains a table of contents,
separating the paper in four chapters. Before each chapter, a brief abstract is provided to
constantly keep the readers aware of what they are reading, in contrast to a relatively short article
such as Globalization of cultural products: a webometric analysis of Kpop in Spanish-speaking
countries, which only requires one brief abstract for the whole article. The dissertation does not
contain any experiments conducted by the Kim. It consists mainly of outside sources, and her
own analysis of the information. Because it is under the Asian American Studies, the information

Commented [6]: No need to spell out the super-long

title multiple times. If you're going to reference
something like this more than once, I'd give it an
abbreviation in parentheses *right after* the first time
you use it -- that signals to your reader, "Yo, I'm not
spelling out this whole title each time, so be ready for
this abbreviated/truncated version."

on the paper is historically presented. Like Vargas and Parks article, it gives an introduction to
what K-pop is but goes more in-depth. It discusses the historical background of Korea during the
early period of K-pop, describing American presence in the country as a major influence. The
dissertation is written in Chicago style, placing the citations as footnotes. The long length of the
paper will likely cause the readers to forget about the sources if they were only confined in one
place. In case the reader does want one place to find a list of the sources, a bibliography is
provided.
To provide a perspective of a non-academic text, a Time magazine article will serve as an
example. The article South Koreas Greatest Export: How K-Pops Rocking the World by
Krista Mahr views K-pop in the category of current events. Among the three texts, this article
gives the least background information of K-pop and simply describes it as Korean pop music
(Mahr). This lack of background information implies that the articles audience may consist of

Commented [7]: All of this is fine'n'dandy, but... so

what? Why are you telling me this? What value is
there is knowing this info?

Medina 4
people who are already familiar with K-pop or have heard of it. As a magazine article, it is the
shortest out of the three texts and is only categorized by paragraphs. The article begins with a

Commented [8]: Yeah, I think you're right, which is

strange... usually it's the other way around, re:
academic/non-academic texts.

personal experience of Mahr attending a K-pop concert. She uses her own experience as her
source and analyzes it. This move brings life to K-pop, furthering its realness and relevancy to
society. It suggests that anyone can participate in the culture. Like Globalization of cultural

Commented [9]: Woo! Great! Tell me more about

this. Hook me up with some textual evidence about her
first-person experience.

products: a webometric analysis of Kpop in Spanish-speaking countries, the authors of both

articles use the authors own research and uses it to support their message. They both engaged in
fieldwork to provide answers to their articles questions. Unlike Vargas and Park, however,
Mahrs data is less quantitative as her research is not as data-based. She conducted her fieldwork
by interviewing people who are participants of the K-pop industry and describing how they are
participating. Leaning to the side of economics, she describes the effects K-pop has in the
economy, but does not state specific amounts of revenue. Her decision to do this dissociates K-

Commented [10]: What did she ask? The interview

questions that someone asks (and, first, *writes*,
usually!) gives us insight into what they perceive to be
important in understanding a topic. So what'd she want
to find out? And what conclusions can we draw about
how she conceptualizes understanding K-Pop?

pop to the thought that it is a mere industry that can only be measured through money. Mahr is
able to show the importance K-pop has on the economy without using dollar signs.
Despite Mahrs article not having the academic revisions the other two texts have, she
still provides a meaningful contribution to the study of K-pop. Her information came from
primary sources which gave her direct information to the business of K-pop. Vargas and Parks
article shows that even though their article is scholarly, mistakes were still prevalent. Reliable
information could be received from either academic or non-academic. Academic articles just
have more credibility because of the thorough proofreading.
A single topic can be differently interpreted many times depending on the different
perspectives of the speakers. People who look at a topic in a particular angle will discuss it in the

Commented [11]: That's it? Nothing else lends a

degree of credibility to the audience's perception?

Medina 5
way they see it and with the information supplied to them in that angle. K-pop, for example, is a
broad enough topic that can be discussed in various ways. In the lenses of Communications
study, Asian-American study, and Economics, K-pop provides many factors to what it consists
of. By using these factors, authors are able to get the information they want and tie them together
to send a particular message. With the addition of using moves, authors can successfully and
appropriately send out their message to an audience.

Medina 6
Works Cited
Graff, Gerald, and Cathy Birkenstein. "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic
Writing. Print.
Kim, Daisy. "Reappropriating Desires in Neoliberal Societies through KPop." (2012).
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Print.
Mahr, Krista. "South Korea's Greatest Export: How K-Pop's Rocking the World." World South
Koreas Greatest Export How KPops Rocking the World Comments. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.
<http://world.time.com/2012/03/07/south-koreas-greatest-export-how-k-pops-rockingthe-world/>.
Meza, Xanat Vargas, and Han Woo Park. "Globalization of cultural products: a webometric
analysis of Kpop in Spanish-speaking countries." Quality & Quantity 49.4 (2015): 13451360.

Medina 7

Writing 2 Feedback Matrix for WP2

Table of Textual Features and Qualities

Did Not Meet

Met

Exceeded

Expectations

Expectation

Expectations

s
Thesis Statement

Use of Textual Evidence from

Genres
Use of Course Readings

Analysis

X/X+

Organization/Structure

Attention to Genre/Conventions

and Rhetorical Factors

Attention to Moves

Sentence-level Clarity, Mechanics,

Flow

Comments and Grade

Medina,

Neat topic. I didnt know that K-Pop was such a

thing -- seems like theres a lot going on there.

Medina 8
:)

OK, please read through my comments as a way

to, hopefully, guide your revision. If I could give
you one big suggestion, itd be this: include a lot
more analysis of the kinds of data/evidence these
different sources are using and what kinds of RQs
theyre asking. Consider some of the big
pictures questions here that get at how do these
different disciplines approach this topic from
different perspectives? What was the study
about? What questions did they ask? What data
did they gather? How do the ways in which these
researchers went about studying this topic differ
from the other authors/researchers, and what
does it suggest in terms of the importance they're
placing on their methods? I dont feel like I
learned anything new about K-Pop from a
Communication or Asian-American Studies
perspective -- help me understand what theyre
trying to teach us about this issue. Get into the
data.

Medina 9

Also, this is a tough one, but try inserting more of

your own voice into this. Youve got a great
one from what Ive read in your blog -- if you can
find a way to make this more of a Medina piece
about how different disciplines/sources analyze
K-Pop rather than just a how different
disciplines/sources analyze K-Pop, I think itd
make it even better.

Also, you can make a lot more use of the space -you left about 1 full page on the plate.

Z
7/10