• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.980-987
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• 2015

Most of cultural area which people enjoy and consume is kitsch culture, though the culture is barely acknowledged. In this multimedia era, people create, publish and enjoy contents of 'webtoon(web+cartoon)', which is relatively faster and more convenient to enjoy comparing to published cartoon. Contrarily to its physical growth, the webtoon shows difficulty in advancing with other genres, is full of irritative factors and contents, and has tough time to become more sophisticated one. This study derived characteristics of kitsch in webtoon, suggested the way of webtoon as an art by analyzing conditions and usage motivation of webtoon. The conditions of kitsch are uniformity of mass consumption, popular vein, catharsis, vicarious satisfaction, immediate feedback-requiring image flood, and reproduction of techniques. The usage motivations of webtoon are studied as pursuit of information, entertainment, relaxation, socialization, convenience, and effectiveness. Usage motivation factors in webtoon and kitsch culture are almost identical. Contrary to its past of being underestimated and vulgarly considered, kitsch is acknowledged as an 'kitsch art'. By studying the process of becoming an art, the study has its purpose to suggest the experimental and developing way to make webtoon be acknowledged as 'webtoon art'.

• Korean Journal of Communication Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.89-121
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• 2014

In order to suggest a strategy for continuous growth of webtoon, this article examined webtoon usage motivation and tried to make a prediction about culture content products and services connected with webtoon, including intention for viewing movies, based on webtoon; intention for switching to paid webtoon content, and intention for buying webtoon character products. From the point of view of Uses and Gratification Theory intentions for using webtoon and human sociocultural behavior intention are already predicted but with the usefulness of Theory of Planned Behavior Integrated Model this study extended the explanation power of prediction about webtoon related behavioral intention. Results found 5 motivational factors for webtoon usage i.e. 'seeking information', 'entertainment and access availability', 'webtoon genre characteristics', 'influence from a friend or acquaintance', and 'escapism and tension release'. Among them the ones that influenced the intention for viewing movies, based on webtoon, were found to be 'webtoon genre characteristics', 'escapism and tension release' and the 3 variables from Theory of Planned Behavior. 'Seeking information', 'entertainment and access availability', 'webtoon genre characteristics', and all the 3 variables from Theory of Planned Behavior were found to influence the intention for switching to paid webtoon content. The intention for buying webtoon based character products was affected by the motivational factors 'seeking information', 'escapism and tension release' and the behavior and subjective norms variables from Theory of Planned Behavior. Based on the uncommon results from the research several suggestions were made for the continuous growth of webtoon.