A Study on the Social and Cultural Factors influencing Rice Cooker Designs from the 1970s to the 1990s

Abstract

Background Rice cookers are one of home the appliances symbolizing the food culture of Korea. The shape of a rice cooker in the 1960s was different from the shape of a present one. With the growth of Korean society in the 1970s, rice cooker design began to change. The changes in rice cooker designs reflected the social and cultural tendencies of those times. This study aims to analyze the stream of Korean rice cooker designs from the 1970s to the 1990s and the social and cultural factors influencing the changes in designs. Methods In this study, the changes in rice cooker designs in 81 rice cooker advertisements in The Kyunghyang newspaper from the 1970s to the 1990s were considered and the social and cultural factors were analyzed, based on three standards; shape, pattern and color. Results In the 1970s, an electric rice cooker, which copied a Japanese rice cooker, appeared. But the rice cooked in the electric rice cooker was not good and people preferred rice cooked in an iron pot. For this reason, a high-pressure rice cooker that applied the shape and principle of an iron pot, appeared. But the high-pressure rice cooker did not keep rice warm. To remedy this, a ’heat-retaining rice cooker’ appeared in the 1980s. In the 1990s, the electric rice cooker became similar to the shape of a modern electric rice cooker and patterns or colors began to be applied to the appearance. There are five social and cultural factors, that influenced the changes in rice cooker designs from the 1970s to the 1990s. First, the shapes and materials of the rice cookers changed due to the emergence of a western-style stand-up kitchen. Second, with the introduction of KSmark, the shapes of rice cookers became fixed and standardized. Third, the quality of domestic rice cookers improved by copying Japanese rice cookers in the 1980s, but they failed to create their own unique designs. Fourth, with the emergence of color television, the outside colors of rice cookers were diversified. Fifth, women’s economic power increased and companies reflected female tastes in rice cooker designs more actively. Conclusions From the 1970s to the 1990s, which saw the upheaval of Korean society, rice cooker designs changed by being influenced by a variety of social and cultural factors of those times.