Food as object and subject in Korean media

This study focuses on the role and function of representations of Korean food in multimedia material such websites, films, and TV drama1. In particular, it aims to explore the methods used to transpose various meanings and semantic changes from the fictional world into today’s Korean culture and society. In order to analyse food and its fictional representations within the Korean context, I apply a diachronic approach, which has a twofold objective. On the one hand, it seeks to demonstrate that food and its representations are not merely used to interpret the fictional and social Korean reality. Food is not only the subject (character) around which the story unfolds but also the object that is manipulated and consumed within the fictional world. Rather, food and its representations are both objects and subjects that influence and are influenced by the fictional and real world in an ever-evolving process that is mediated by the audiovisual text. On the other hand, such an approach aims to show that food and its representations are proposed to viewers as an example of Korean excellence that can convey a sense of cultural ‘escape’. They attempt to replicate reality through fictional plausibility. This approach is employed here as a key to interpret and show the role that food has in the Korean fictional and real world. In particular, it highlights the communicative function of food, which is able to convey peculiar meanings and modify perception. This is possible because food simultaneously influences and is influenced by the fiction and reality of Korean society.