science

South Korean web culture

South Korean web culture is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand South Korean web culture rather than just read about it. In short: South Korean web culture indicates distinct activities that South Korean Internet users enjoy on the web. Synonyms include cyberculture, technoculture, virtual community culture, post-human culture, and high tech culture.

Key takeaways

South Korean web culture belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect South Korean web culture to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of South Korean web culture from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

South Korean web culture indicates distinct activities that South Korean Internet users enjoy on the web. Synonyms include cyberculture, technoculture, virtual community culture, post-human culture, and high tech culture. Cyberculture in South Korea is more like a virtual community culture than anything else. Most of the Internet users are in the 10-49 age range. People often access the Internet through cyber cafes (Korean: PC방; PC bang). Most of the activities are targeted to teenagers and college students. Young people who feel more comfortable texting than talking are known as the "thumb tribe". The LG Mobile World Cup, an international competition held on January 14, 2010, in which participants competed using their texting speed and accuracy was won by a pair of South Koreans. Highly urbanized at 92%, South Koreans lead a distinctive urban lifestyle; half of them live in high-rises concentrated in the Seoul Capital Area with 25 million residents. The rise of online social activities closely mirrors the wider cultural trend towards shared spaces, such as the habitual use of coffee houses. South Korea enjoys the world's swiftest Internet speeds and the highest rate of Internet penetration but also suffers from very high censorship of content. Internet culture is particularly prominent in South Korea with its influence of video games, video content, and streaming services.

Major activities

Video games as spectator sports Video games and the watching of video games is very popular. South Korea leads the world in video games as spectator sports. Blizzard Entertainment entered into a co-marketing agreement with Korean Air that lasted for six months, in which two of the airline's airplanes on both domestic and international routes prominently displayed StarCraft II advertising featuring Jim Raynor on the fuselage. This popularity has led to a natural rise in famous commentators on web games as part of the wider blogging community. It is noted that South Korea served as a significant influence in the development of esports internationally. The creation of the Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) in October 2003 was the first esports association in the world. This organization put into practice various regulations and foundations as well as promoted competitive esports leagues. In further expansion of esports across Korea, the Korean Air Force established a military affiliate esports team called Air Force Challenges e-Sports (ACE). This allowed those serving their required military time to explore esports as a career. Large esports teams have exploded in popularity T1 is the prime esports team in South Korea. They hold a number 1 ranked position in Overwatch 2 along with other teams that compete in games such as Valorant and Tekken 8.

Blogging Just like other countries, blogging is also popular in South Korea. Post topics range from personal reflections on philosophical conjectures to simple everyday life stories. Some of the popular Korean blog hosting websites include Naver Blog, Egloos, Blogin (defunct), Daum Blog, Yahoo! Korea Blog, Tistory, and Textcube.com (defunct). Two major portals for online communities in South Korea are Daum and Naver. Both operate as open public forums, or cafés, hosting a wide range of discussion topics—from entertainment, idols, and popular culture to more serious subjects like family, education, politics, and religion.

Instant messaging

In Korea, the most popular online messengers include NateOn, KakaoTalk, MSN Messenger, BuddyBuddy, Sayclub Tachy and more NateOn is known to have surpassed the usage share of MSN, now claiming the most number of users among messengers used in Korea. The apps are popular because some of them offer significantly more than just services related to instant messaging. KakaoTalk the most used instant messenger in South Korea provides several services including: banking, online shopping and transport. Many of these services have appeared to develop beyond the idea of just an instant messenger app they have become a way of life. The country also boasts some of the fastest intent speed in the entire world which makes it one of the prime locations for instant messaging. Ranking in the top 25 of fastest internet speeds in the entire world.

Q&A

Some search engine websites also provide "knowledge searches", which is an answer to a question that has been asked by another search engine user. For example, in Naver Knowledge iN registered users can post a question on any topic of their choice. Some users ask very personal questions pertaining to relationships and the like, since the user's real identity is not exposed. When various users answer a question they are awarded a certain number of points, the person who asked the question can then select the best answer and will be awarded points. This user can then ask questions on the website using the points that he/she was awarded. The users with most points are ranked daily with the option to display their real identities, if they choose to do so.

Webtoons

"Webtoon" (Hangul: 웹툰, RR: wep-tun) is a South Korean webcomic, or manhwa that is published online. The Korean web portal Daum created a webtoon service in 2003, as did Naver in 2004. These services regularly release webtoons that are available for free. According to David Welsh of Bloomberg, comics account for a quarter of all book sales in South Korea, while more than 3 million Korean users paid to access online manhwa and 10 million users read free webcomics. As of July 2014, Naver had published 520 webtoons while Daum had published 434. Since the early 2010s, services such as Tapastic and Line Webtoon have begun to officially translate webtoons into English. Examples of popular webtoons that have been translated into English are The Breaker, Girls of the Wild's, The Gamer, Noblesse, The God of High School, and Tower of God. In recent years, these webtoons have been gaining popularity in Western markets, rivalling Japanese manga. Some of them have even adapted in popular anime.

As digital comics have emerged as a popular medium, print publication of manhwa has decreased. The amount of material published in webtoon form has now reached an equal amount as that published offline. Webtoons highlight a technological aspect of Koreans online culture and design, specifically they are designed with the intention of to be read by scrolling. A development made to make the reading of webtoons not only different but also more streamlined.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Logo from God of Highschool anime adaptation.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with South Korean web culture

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what South Korean web culture claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to South Korean web culture before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about South Korean web culture ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of South Korean web culture

In research: South Korean web culture appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses South Korean web culture in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: South Korean web culture is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Internet culture, Internet in South Korea, South Korean popular culture, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for South Korean web culture outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “South Korean web culture” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study South Korean web culture in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what South Korean web culture means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain South Korean web culture out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is South Korean web culture in simple terms?

Why does South Korean web culture matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study South Korean web culture?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on South Korean web culture.