K-Drama as Ecocinema? A Multimodal Analysis of Climate Change Representation in 60 Globally Popular Korean TV Dramas

This is a companion website for the article "K-Drama as Ecocinema? A Multimodal Analysis of Climate Change Representation in 60 Globally Popular Korean TV Dramas", by the authors Cristiane Melchior, Hannele Seeck, and Ratna Aini Hadi, published in the International Journal of Communication (Forthcoming).

This study explores climate change themes in 60 globally popular K-dramas from 2019 to 2024 by applying sentiment, network and framing analysis. Our research examines how climate change is portrayed as an underrepresented but critical global issue in popular entertainment, analyzing the invisibility of environmental narratives in Korean television dramas.

Table 1 - Related Works

Table 1 offers a comparative overview of prior quantitative studies on K-dramas, highlighting their research objectives, K-dramas analyzed, focus, and methodological approaches. This synthesis situates our study within the evolving landscape of K-drama scholarship.

• Cho, H., Kang, W. K., Park, Y.-S., Chae, S. G., & Kim, S. (2022). Multi-label facial emotion recognition using korean drama video clips. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data and Smart Computing (BigComp), 215–221. https://doi.org/10.1109/BigComp54360.2022.00049
• Pant, S., Lim, E., Yang, H.-J., Lee, G.-S., Kim, S.-H., Kang, Y.-S., & Jang, H. (2022). Korean drama scene transcript dataset for emotion recognition in conversations. IEEE Access, 10, 119221–119231. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3221408
• Priscilla, E. B. K., Hidayat, V. V., Supriadi, O., (2022). Product placement across digital media: The impact of prominence, modality, and plot connection toward brand recall on korean drama ‘business proposal’. IEEE Conference Publications. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISRITI56927.2022.10052872
• Park, H., & Kim, H. K. (2021). Verbal abuse classification using multiple deep neural networks. In 2021 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Information and Communication (ICAIIC) (pp. 316–319). Jeju Island, South Korea: IEEE, https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAIIC51459.2021.9415218
• Lee, J., Park, S-Y. (2015). Women's employment and professional empowerment in South Korean dramas: A 10-year analysis. Asian Journal of Communication, 25(4), 393-407. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2014.968594
• Lee, B., Ham, S., & Kim, D. (2015). The effects of likability of Korean celebrities, dramas, and music on preferences for Korean restaurants: A mediating effect of a country image of Korea. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 46, 200–212. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2014.05.012
• Kim, S., Kim, M., Agrusa, J., & Lee, A. (2012). Does a food-themed TV drama affect perceptions of national image and intention to visit a country? An empirical study of Korea TV drama. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 29(4), 313–326. https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2012.674869

Table 2 - Empirical Results Organized by Entman's Four Core Framing Functions

Table 2 presents the core empirical insights from the reviewed studies, organized through the lens of Entman's four framing functions: (1) problem definition, how climate change is portrayed; (2) causal interpretation, who or what is held responsible; (3) moral evaluation, the ethical judgments expressed; and (4) treatment recommendation, the solutions or actions proposed.

• Entman, R. M., & Rojecki, A. (1993). Freezing out the public: Elite and media framing of the U.S. anti‐nuclear movement. Political Communication, 10(2), 155–173. https://doi-org.ezproxy.cc.lut.fi/10.1080/10584609.1993.9962973 ...
• Akhavan-Majid, R., & Ramaprasad, J. (2000). Framing Beijing: Dominant ideological influences on the American press coverage of the fourth UN conference on women and the NGO forum. Gazette (Leiden, Netherlands), 62(1), 45–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016549200062001004
• Entman, R. M. (2003). Cascading activation: Contesting the white house’s frame after 9/11. Political Communication, 20(4), 415–432. https://doi-org/10.1080/10584600390244176
• Beaudoin, C. E. (2007). SARS news coverage and its determinants in China and the US. International Communication Gazette, 69(6), 509–524. https://doi-org/10.1177/1748048507082839
• Matthes, J., & Kohring, M. (2008). The content analysis of media frames: Toward improving reliability and validity. Journal of Communication, 58(2), 258–279. https://doi-org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.00384.x
• Bell, C. V., & Entman, R. M. (2011). The media’s role in America’s exceptional politics of inequality: Framing the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 16(4), 548–572. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161211417334
• Xie, L. (2015). The story of two big chimneys: A frame analysis of climate change in US and chinese newspapers. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 44(2), 151–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2015.1011593
• Han, J., Sun, S., & Lu, Y. (2017). Framing climate change: A content analysis of chinese mainstream newspapers from 2005 to 2015. International Journal of Communication, 11(0), 2889–2911. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6011/2090
• Coleman, R., & Chen, T. (2020). Forgotten frames: Proposing the concept of “digressive framing” using left-out frames in chinese media coverage of left-behind children. International Journal of Communication, 14(0), 6005–6025. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/15555

Figure 1 - Intensity of climate change references in the K-dramas by season and episode number.

This heatmap visualizes the intensity of climate change references across episodes (x-axis) for each K-drama (y-axis) in our dataset. Each episode is represented by a rectangle colored according to the references to climate change themes in that specific episode. Gray represents no reference, while the color intensity, ranging from light to dark blue, indicates the strength of climate-related content in each episode, with darker shades representing stronger references to climate change themes.

Table 3 - Top Globally Popular Korean TV Dramas (2019-2024)

The following table presents the top globally popular K-dramas released between 2019 and 2024, selected based on annual audience vote counts. The number in "Climate Results Included" captures how frequently climate-related keywords appear in subtitles, offering a proxy for the prominence of environmental discourse. "Excluded results" denote keyword matches lacking substantive ecological context. The "Climate Change Intensity" score (1-5 scale) gauges an average narrative depth of climate themes.

Table 4 - Climate Change Theme Categories

This table offers illustrative examples from each of the seven identified climate change theme categories, providing a concise glimpse into how these environmental narratives are articulated across diverse K-drama scenes.

Detailed Scene Analysis

The following tables provide detailed analysis of specific scenes from K-dramas that feature climate change themes, showcasing dialogue and context.