Chinese Dream, Cool Japan, and the Korean Wave: “Gangnam Style” and the Soft Power of East Asian Countries among Young Adults in the US Heartland

Abstract

The present study examined the “soft” appeal of three East Asian countries rated by young adult Americans in their plain words, specifically young Americans’ impressions of East Asia in link to salient East Asian pop cultural products and brands (e.g., Gangnam Style [in Korean: 강남스타일] rocked the world in 2012). Two hundred and fourteen US students completed the survey in spring 2013. The respondents all in all had a difficulty in telling one East Asian country’s product from the others’. Of the countries scrutinized in the present study, a majority of young Americans held neutral attitudes toward China and Japan but negative attitudes toward South Korea. A sizable number of young Americans knew a few Japanese-turned-global, pop cultural brands but mistakenly believed they were Made in China, although they could not recognize Chinese product names and brands. Among single pop cultural products, Gangnam Style was most salient in young Americans’ memory. Finally, pop culture-induced soft power appeals were somewhat linked to the amount of knowledge the respondents believed they had about a certain country as well as the degree of their liking of the country. Still, the present study indicated that a country’s soft power is not entirely independent of her hard power. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.