• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.39
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• pp.473-505
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• 2007

Advertising is regarded as one of media's most proficient instruments of reflecting changing society. It represents the channel through which globalization and consumption culture have spread into everyday life. This study explores the significance and representations of multi-culturalism in contemporary television commercials. For the purpose, the social and historical meanings of the term 'multi-culturalism', generated inside and outside Korea, are discussed. A series of text analysis are followed, focusing on the representation of non-Korean models in terms of ethnicity and race. The result shows that the advertising is the instrument utilized in creating the relationship between multi-culturalism and racialism, which is called 'strategic multi-culturalism'. This strategy commonly happens in today's commercial advertising such as information/telecommunication, real estate/branded apartment complex, and bank/finance market. Despite the increasing number of multi-cultural commercials in the past decade, multi-culturalism in Korean society has not yet fully articulated.