Audience Reception Analysis of Bullying in the Korean Drama the Glory

Abstract

Audiences actively interpret and generate meaning, influenced by their backgrounds. With technological advances from traditional media to new media, audiences can now choose messages and become producers of meaning, not just passive recipients of content. The K-drama The Glory addresses the issue of bullying in South Korea through encoding that represents injustice and the lack of sincere apologies from the perpetrators. This drama depicts bullying at school by a group of teenagers caused by social and economic disparities. Victims suffer materially, physically and psychologically, while perpetrators do not receive adequate punishment. A preferred reading from this drama suggests that the victims have the right to seek revenge to obtain lost justice. The aim of this research is to explore how the audience reception bullying in the K-drama The Glory. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with five audiences from various backgrounds. The method used is qualitative reception analysis using Stuart Hall's Encoding-Decoding theory approach. The selection of informants in this research used a purposive sampling technique. The results of this research are that the five informants were categorized in a negotiation position. The researches found that The Glory was generally accepted by the informants, but negotiated in certain situations. As a result, the drama is negotiated as a moral value by informants who had experienced similar situations. From an ethical point of view, this is seen as an ethical violation, because it goes against their religion and ideology. Informants also worry that the drama could perpetuate bullying, especially because of the uncensored brutal scenes on Netflix. However, this is considered to encourage social change based on social conditions in Indonesia. Lastly, the drama was received as supporting gender equality.