Problematizing cultural difference: YouTube narratives about COVID-19 by South Korean and American Vloggers

ABSTRACTIn this study we compare 8 American and 8 South Korean vlogs by YouTubers documenting their experiences of COVID in 2020. We propose a nuanced approach to cross-cultural difference that rejects binaries and involves the study of how communicative resources are used by participants in specific events. We detail similarities and differences between the vloggers, from trends in the distribution of topics to use of visual and linguistic resources. Drawing on a narratives as practices approach and multimodal discourse analysis, we demonstrate that differences in the data are related to various scales that vloggers navigate in their experiences with COVID.본 연구는 2020년에 코로나에 감염된 미국인 유튜버 8명과 한국인 유튜버 8명의 브이로그를 분석, 비교한다. 한국과 미국 유튜버들의 브이로그에서 다뤄지는 주제, 시각적 구성, 언어적 요소 등의 공통점과 차이점을 면밀히 살펴봄으로써, 보다 맥락에 민감하게 문화적 차이를 접근하는 방식을 제시하고자 한다. 내러티브를 실천으로서 바라보는 관점에서 브이로그를 접근하여 한국과 미국 유튜버들의 브이로그는 그들이 마주하는 서로 다른 사회문화적 현실의 여러 단면을 반영한다는 것을 확인하였다.KEYWORDS: StorytellingnarrativeCOVID-19intercultural communicationsocial mediavlogs Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1 All case counts are from the COVID-19 database provided by JHU CSSE.2 Subscriber count accessed on May 11, 2022.Additional informationNotes on contributorsJungyoon KohJungyoon Koh is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research interests include identity construction in social media discourse and human-computer interaction.Anna De FinaAnna De Fina is Professor of Italian Language and Linguistics in the Italian Department and affiliated faculty with the Linguistics Department at Georgetown University. Her interests and publications focus on discourse and narrative, identity, chronotopes, migration and super diversity. She has published extensively on these topics including many articles in internationally recognized journals and 12 volumes between authored and edited books. She is co-editor of the book series Encounters for Multilingual Matters and Discourse, Narrative and Interaction for Routledge. Her latest publications are the Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies, coedited with Alexandra Georgakopoulou (2020, Cambridge University Press) and Exploring (Im)mobilities: Language Practices, Discourses and Imaginaries, co-edited with Gerardo Mazzaferro (2021, Multilingual Matters).