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A Descriptive Analysis of Family Interactions
in the Television Daily Drama in Korea: Cross-cultural Approach
by
Ha, Jong Won
Associate Professor, Dept. of Mass Communication and Journalism
Sun Moon University, Korea
Visiting Scholar, S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse University, USA
5100 Highbridge #51F, Fayetteville, NY 13066
Tel: 315-637-4188
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Many television dramas have featured famies as the primary story vehicle.
This paper aimed to analyze the family interactions focusing on the power
process across family roles in Korean daily drama in comparison with
American drama. The interactions between family members were characterized
by conflicts of female members with the exception of wives. Mothers,
daughters, sisters, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law were arranged at
the core of conflicts and struggles in contrast to their counterparts:
fathers, sons, brothers, fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, namely men. It was
dissimilar to those of American drama.
Key Words: Korean Daily Drama, Family Interaction, Power Relation, Conflict
Strategy
Paper submitted to Open Competition of International
Communication Division, 2004 AEJMC Convention
Descriptive Analysis of Family Interactions
in the Television Daily Drama in Korea: Cross-cultural Approach
ABSTRACT
Many television dramas have featured families as the primary story vehicle.
This paper aimed to analyze the family interactions focusing on the power
process across family roles in Korean daily drama in comparison with
American drama. The interactions between family members were characterized
by conflicts of female members with the exception of wives. Mothers,
daughters, sisters, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law were arranged at
the core of conflicts and struggles in contrast to their counterparts:
fathers, sons, brothers, fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, namely men. It was
dissimilar to those of American drama.
Key Words: Korean Daily Drama, Family Interaction, Power Relation, Conflict
Strategy
Paper submitted to Open Competition of International
Communication Division, 2004 AEJMC Convention
Family has been ceaselessly emphasized for all times and spaces. It has
been regarded as the basic unit of society and important place for
socialization. But family seems to be not static phenomena but dynamic
process, as cultures are not found but created socially. The family is
characteristically influenced by external and historical conditions (for
instance, level of modernity, environmental factors, and traditional values
inherent in central considerations such as religion) and by idiosyncratic
patterns of communications at home, including especially uses of language,
styles of interpersonal interaction, and uses of mass media (Lull, 1988:
8). It is sometimes said that the disintegration of the traditional family
unit may threaten the whole social system. Family becomes the subject of
political debate and controversy in modern society.
Family and Family Interaction
Not only the primary organizing unit in most societies, family is but also
a common element in many television programs. It constructs the basic unit
and gives a setting for television. Few contemporary forms of storytelling
offer territory as fertile as television for uncovering widely received
ideas about family. The language and imagery of family break obsessively
through the surface forms of its entire genre. Of all these it is the
episodic series that fosters a gradual build up of viewer attachment to
individual characters and their relationships, generating the fullest
possibilities for a meditation on domestic themes (Taylor, 1989: 17). Many
television dramas have featured family as the primary story vehicle since
the introduction of drama into television.
The pervasiveness and importance of the family has stimulated a wide
variety of research, theorizing and criticism. In the past several decades,
at least five approaches have been developed as follows (Allen, 1978;
Barcus, 1983: 119-120 recited) : institutional approach (considers the
origin and evolution of families, through cross-cultural and
cross-historical comparison), structural-functional approach (views the
family as a social system and focuses on both its internal system
relationships and external relationships with other societal
subsystems), interactional approach (attempts to interpret family
phenomena in terms of internal, interpersonal processes), situational
approach (views the family as a social situation which influences member
behaviors), and developmental approach (views the family and its members as
moving through a life cycle or series of developmental stages). Of these
five approaches, perhaps the most appropriate one for studying TV family
would be the interactional approach.
The study of power relationships and decision-making patterns in
contemporary families has been a major topic in the marriage and family
literature for the past two decades (McDonald, 1980: 841). Family role
structures and role interaction patterns on television constitute an
abundant and potentially important class of environmental stimuli available
for attitude formation and change and for behavioral modeling by a child
(Greenberg et al., 1980a: 150). Both social learning theory (Bandura, 1971)
and cultivation theory (Gerbner et al, 1980a; 198b) support the premise
that observation of interaction among television characters has the
potential to influence viewers' stereotypes, role learning, aggression, and
worldviews; construct the social reality. .
In this context, the analysis on the interaction between the family members
in TV drama will provide useful base for further research on family and
communication. Family interaction happens in decision-making,
problem-solving, and conflict resolution in the family environment, which
are closely connected to the concept of 'family power process' (Olson and
Cromwell, 1975) which includes interaction variables such as assertiveness
and control. Power and power relations provide a fundamental set of
problems and focal points for both the situated analysis of interaction and
communication, and their wider structural locations and determinants
(O'Sullivan et al., 1994: 235). The study of power and power relations
appears to be both invisible form and serves as a basis for the study of
communication.
Power Process and Conflict Strategy
Many authors have tried to provide definition of power, but there seems to
be little possibility in agreement about it. In broad terms, power means
the ability to control people, objects and events to some extent
(Hollander, 1985: 488). And it is defined as the ability to achieve desired
goals or outcomes, whether phrased in terms of changing behaviors of others
(Cromwell & Olson, 1975). But there may be some resistance to the exercise
of one's power. So power can be defined as the means by which certain
individuals and groups are able to dominate others, to carry through and
realize their own particular aims and interests even in the face of
opposition and resistance (O'Sullivan et al., 1994: 235). Even Dahl (1957:
202-203) points the intuitive idea of power that A has power over B to the
extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do. It
is similar to the 'power over' concept, one of three types of power, which
means the ability to dominate another person, group or nation, thereby
forcing it to comply with demands (Burgess and Burgess, 1997: 240-241).
There are two facets considered in power. The one is the force which A can
'induce' on B, another one is the 'resistance' which B can offer. The
strength of the resultant force on B can be determined by the relative
magnitude of the forces activated by A to 'comply' and 'resist'
(Cartwright, 1959: 193-194). So we must consider 'counter power' of
defender as well as the power of initiator, that is to say 'power process'.
It refers to the interactional techniques which individuals employ in their
attempts to gain control in the negotiation or decision-making process
(McDonald, 1980: 843).
Power is the fundamental concept in conflict. In other words, conflict is
inseparable from and requires the exercise of power (Duke, 1976; Skill and
Wallace, 1990: 251 recited). Like many social units, conflict among family
members has come into existence endlessly as far as the family has been
existed in the world. Television drama whose setting is home mainly depends
on the conflict structure among family members. Regarding conflict as the
core of home drama, blood relation in itself can cause conflict. What is
more important thing is to examine the power process (what kind of conflict
strategies are employed) and its consequences (whether the conflict is
resolved or deepened) rather than conflict itself (whether conflict exists
or not).
French and Raven (1959) summarized five bases of O (social agent)'s power
to P (person) as follows: Reward power is based on P's perception that O
has the ability to mediate rewards for him; Coercive power is based on P's
perception that O has the ability to mediate punishments for him;
Legitimate power is based on the perception by P that O has legitimate
right to prescribe behavior for him; Referent power is based on P's
identification with O; Expert power is based on the perception that O has
some special knowledge or expertness.
Dail and Way (1985) identified parenting behaviors in family-oriented,
prime-time television program. They reported three parental roles as
instrumental, expressive and neutral role. Instrumental role takes parents
responsibilities for primary decision making, directive and dominant, firm
in enforcing rules. Expressive role provides security and gives nurturing
and supportive environments for children. Neutral role is directions to
child in form of polite request or comment on neutral subject.
Galvin and Brommel (1986) suggested three types of conflict strategies
which reflect distinct family conflict outcomes. Integrative strategies
produce constructive outcomes, which illustrate cooperation and promote
relational growth and maintenance. Distributive strategies cause
destructive outcomes which result from a power struggle and negatively
affect the quality of family relationship. Avoidance strategies are
associated with unresolved conflict which may result in psychological or
physical estrangement among the family members.
Larson (1993) proposed two types of communication between both sides, using
a variation of the method by some researchers (Greenberg et al., 1980a;
Greenberg et al., 1980b). Those are affiliative communication and
conflictive communication. Each type has its own subcategories: the former
includes informing (seeking and giving information), supporting (seeking
and giving support), directing (giving instructions and accepting
direction), and contributing (miscellaneous communication behavior such as
greeting); the latter includes opposing (raising objections), attacking
(criticizing), and evading (changing the topic).
Generally speaking, there are three reactions of responders to power
strategies by initiators: Going toward initiator, going against initiator,
and going away from initiator.
Family Interaction in TV Drama
The source and process of family power and its consequence is not easy to
examine, because it is difficult to gain access to the use of power in
natural settings. Even if it may have a descriptive characteristic, the
investigation on power interaction of family in television drama is very
useful to understand how this process might be explored in real-life
situation (Skill and Wallace, 243-244).
At the initial stage, family power was limited to husband-wife dyad. But
viewing family power as a subset of the broader 'social power' concept, the
unit of analysis can be seen to involve differing role relationship
dynamics in the family (McDonald, 1980). It was divided into martial power
(husband-wife power dynamics), parental power (mother/father power),
offspring power (children's control over parents), sibling power
(brother/sister or combination) and kinship power
(grandparents/aunts/uncle/stepfamily members).
Earlier studies before 1970s had usually analyzed family type, demographic
characteristics and its role-taking. After reviewing 22 TV programs for
children and family, Long and Simon (1974) found that men were more likely
to be dominant than woman and that women were portrayed in comic roles or
as wives and mothers. For women none work was outside home and appearance
was emphasized. Fisher (1974) investigated family interaction in three
major TV networks, especially the roles of husband-father and wife-mother.
He reported that televised marital and familial role behaviors were
conflict free emphasizing affectionate and altruistic concerns for one's
spouse and children. And there were little violent or disruptive behaviors
between them.
In 1980s, family relationships and their interactions have begun to be
examined more systematically and thoroughly. In a series of studies,
Greenberg and his associates tried to investigate family role behavior on
television in terms of directionality of communications (Greenberg et al.,
1980a; Greenberg et al., 1980b). They found that parents were most likely
to give directions and children were least likely to do so. Supportive
behaviors were most likely to originate with parents and spouses, while
sons and brothers were least likely to demonstrate these behaviors.
Children were found to seek support most often. There were some differences
in conflict situation with the times. Conflict was occurred among spouses
and brothers during the 1975-77 seasons. In the 1977-78 seasons, however,
conflict was found to be more evenly distributed across family roles. And
they also reported the difference in conflict according to race (Greenberg
and Neuendorf, 1980). In black families, conflict was found to be more
prevalent than among white families, and siblings and wives took the
greater portion of conflict.
Dail and Way (1985) used content analysis to identify parenting behaviors
portrayed in family-oriented, prime television programs during the 1982
season. The behaviors were coded in terms of the parent role, child rearing
patterns and children's response. Their results showed that television
fathers were somewhat more active as parents than were mothers and both
mothers and fathers were portrayed in traditional ways, even though many
more nontraditional than traditional family structures were represented.
Most of television children responses to child rearing patterns were coded
as positive, but there was a difference according to sex of the television
parents.
Akins (1986) investigated family programming on commercial television as a
possible model for family lifestyle and interpersonal interaction for
developing child. She tried to compare 30 TV programs between the 1960s and
the 1980s. Its results were that children were more interactive and
initiated more interaction with their parents in the 1980s than the 1960s.
Family members were more supportive and showed greater concern for another
in the 1980s. Family members additionally evaded and withdrew, ignored and
opposed one another more in the 1980s than the 1960s. Children in the 1980s
were portrayed as seeking information more often than children in 1960s.
All children in the 1980s initiated more conflict with adults. Family
members in the 1980s additionally displayed more overt love and caring
toward one another than in the 1960s. Males were more interactive than
females in both seasons alike.
Comstock and Strzyzewski (1990) analyzed prime time television programs of
three kinds of genre (situation comedies, family dramas, and nighttime
soaps) during 1987-88 seasons to see personal relationship in family
conflict. The most frequently occurring televised conflict involved the
parent-child role relationship. They applied three conflict strategies
discussed by Galvin and Brommel (1986) to use of strategies by role, and
found that mother commonly used integrative strategies while father most
often used distributive strategies in conflict with children. When
responding to parents, sons most often responded to both parents with
integrative strategies, while daughter most often responded to mothers with
avoidance strategies and fathers with distributive strategies. Family
conflict was common on primetime television. In husband-wife relationship,
conflict initiated by wives were most often portrayed as antisocial, on the
other hand conflict initiated by husbands is portrayed in a more prosocial
manner. It was found that there were differences in gender and role
relationship rather than television genre.
Skill and Wallace (1990) explored the frequency and distribution of
assertive power as demonstrated in communicative behaviors across family
roles and type of family configurations in 25 prime programs of the 1987
season. They adapted power bases of French and Raven (1959) and conflict
strategies of Galvin and Brommel (1986) for coding scheme. This study also
supported that the family on primetime television engages in more positive
than negative communicative behaviors. According to its results, expert
power, based on cognitive reasoning, was the most often employed strategies
by all roles. Mothers and fathers, however, were more likely to use reward
strategies when dealing with their children. It was also found that the use
of assertive power acts, conformity acts, and rejection acts was differed
by family type. Intact families were the most harmonious; members of these
families were least likely to engage in both power acts and rejection acts
and most likely to exhibit conformity behaviors. Mixed families units were
more likely to exhibit rejection behaviors and less likely to demonstrate
conformity behaviors. Non-intact families were more harmonious than mixed
families, but less so than intact family configuration.
Comparing the interaction behaviors of television families from the 1989-90
seasons with those of the late 1970s, Heintz (1992) found that TV family
interactions were still overwhelmingly affiliative, but conflict and
withdrawal were more frequent in the late 1980s than the late 1970s. Almost
one-third of all familial interactions occurred between husbands and wives
and almost two thirds of these were classified as going toward. Fathers
were more communicative than mothers with their children. More parent-child
conflicts, however, occurred in interactions with fathers than with
mothers. The majority of conflictive interactions remained within the
spousal dialogue and in dyads featuring a male child or sibling
interactions involving teen-age brother-sister. And it was found that the
nuclear families were so prevalent in the late 1970s, but extended family
members were added to the nuclear family in the late 1980s.
To summarize, it has maintained family interaction in television drama to
be affiliative way rather than conflictive for many years. But there
appeared to be some changes in family communication patterns over time. In
television before 1960's, there was only desirable and ideal type of family
where violent and ruinous behavior and conflict situations between family
members were not permitted. Television families of the 1970s reflected
stereotypical family roles, and family interactions were dominantly
happened between spouses and from parents to children. Entering to the
1980s, family roles in TV drama have been less stereotypical: family
communication in general has been nurturing and supportive, but somewhat
more conflictive than the past; Children have gradually dominated the
family interaction rather than their parents; the relationship between
spouses or sibling has come out to be more hostile.
Sociocultural Aspects of Korean Daily Drama as a Genre
Altman (1999) criticized the definitional approach to genres. He understood
genre as a cultural product, constituted by media practices and subject to
ongoing change and definition. Mittel (2000) also considered genre as a
conceptual category formed by cultural practices and located genres within
the complex interrelations between texts, industries, audiences and
historical contexts (in Lee, 2001: 495-496). It is necessary to perceive
daily drama in Korea as a cultural product and to understand a complex
process of its interrelated practices in the formation of a genre.
Drama has been estimated to function as settling television down
successfully in Korea since the introduction of television. Among them,
daily drama had played a decisive role, as the pro-wrestling did in Japan.
At the initial stage of popularization of television sets to Korea, there
had been very strong correlation between the increase rate of television
sets and the rating of daily drama. One millions of television sets had
been distributed in the mid-1972, when the highest rating of daily drama
was recorded (Oh, 1994: 90).
The success of daily drama in the 1970s could be attributed to economic and
industrial factors. The advantage of programming in daily drama, to be
aired in the same time every day, had been very effective means for TV
companies to capture the fixed audience. They could easily arrange
commercials before and after the drama as much as possible because of its
short running time, so that they could get much advertising revenue. And
its production cost was much cheaper than any other dramas including
weekend drama (Cho, 1997: 81-82).
In addition to these industrial benefits, however, the cultural elements
must be considered. The tradition of oral culture had been maintained in
Korea when television as a new media had been introduced. Television
replaced the role of telling a 'story' which the Koreans had been familiar
with and enjoyed for a long time (Rhie, 2002). Daily drama, which could
visit every home in the same time every day, was more suitable format to
play the role than any other television dramas or programs.
The daily drama in Korea had been inclined to be melo-dramatic in the first
phase. It dealt with love, marriage, betrayal and revenge. But confronted
with social pressure and governmental regulation for its immorality and
vulgarity, it had to change its characteristics into family drama. It had
took home as a main setting and developed the story about all the family
members rather than main role characters only. Entering into the 1980s, the
characteristics of familism had been strengthened under the authoritarian
political regime.
A new, but weak change had come out when a new television company, SBS
(Seoul Broadcasting System) appeared as the only commercial broadcasting
television. Television companies had tried to add melo-dramatic elements to
their daily dramas little by little. It can be explained as one of the
strategies of securing much more audiences by enlarging the scope of themes
and giving conflicts and stimuli.
It is perhaps inevitable that a little melo-dramatic element is included in
family drama, because family drama also cannot help dealing with love theme
like other dramas. According to the intensity of conflict involved in
drama, daily drama in Korea could be divided into two types: home-oriented
drama with weak conflict and melodramatic family drama with strong conflict
(Won, 1997). And social and political conditions of Korea also have
considerably influenced on its identity. Daily drama in Korea could be
described as a kind of pendulum-like oscillation between them.
This paper tried to establish a descriptive analysis of family interaction
patterns in power process across family roles in daily drama in Korea,
especially as compared with American drama. There is a cross-cultural
implications considering family interaction, because of differential family
structure and role in different subcultures, both domestic and international.
Method
Data Set
As the public service broadcasting of Korea, KBS has persisted in the
family oriented tradition of daily drama more strictly than the other two
broadcasting companies in Korea. Its daily dramas have adopted three
principles of traditional family drama, namely space (Seoul), time
(present) and theme (lives of common people), as the general rule of
production (Oh, 1994). To meet the criteria of family drama (family as
primary story vehicle) and examine trend over time, programs selected in
this study were defined to daily dramas of KBS.
Three daily dramas of KBS were chosen every three years during the period
from 1997 to 2003. Those are For Your Love (1997), Can't Help Loving You
(2000) and Yellow Handkerchief (2003). Each drama was videotaped for 4
weeks, yielding total sum of 30 hours (60 episodes x 30 minutes).
Coding
Unit of analysis. The unit of analysis was defined as a communicative act
or sequence of acts between two or more family members. It took the form of
a statement or action of one person bounded by the statement or action of
another. In a series of interchanges, an act was initiated by the actor's
statement or action and it terminated when the statement or action of
another began (Raush, Barry, Hertel & Swan, 1974; Skill and Wallace, 1990:
250-251 recited). When any actor changed his or her mode of interaction, or
when another actor entered the scene, the first interaction was considered
completed and a second interaction began. Generally an act might be a
lengthy statement, a sentence, a phrase, or word, but sometimes it included
gesture, facial expression and other physical behavior.
Coding scheme. Programs were coded for family role and strategies employed
in family interaction. Family role was defined as the part he or she took
in family setting. It was divided into two parts. One was the role in the
basic family unit (parents and children), and another was the role of
in-laws and other kinship (parents-in-law, son-in-law etc.), including the
lovers before the marriage.
Type of strategies employed by family members during interactions were also
consisted of two parts. One was assertive strategies by initiator which
were adopted on the power bases of French and Raven (1986) as follows:
reward power (the individual's ability to administer or withhold rewards),
coercive power (the administering of punishment if the course of action is
not accepted), legitimate power (normative or socially prescribed notions
of who holds power and has a right to exercise it), referent power (the
desire of the receiving person to be accepted by or affiliated with the
power user), and expert power (the power user as having knowledge or
expertise on the topic or issue). To these five powers, informational power
was added which referred to the potential for influence based on the
persuasive ability of power user. This concept of power bases has been
estimated as the basis of useful model of interpersonal influence (Anthony,
1995: 449). After the pilot study, however, it was found that there were
fewest reward power, referent power and expert power under family setting
in Korean daily drama. Therefore, the other three power bases were finally
adopted for main analysis.
Other type of strategies was concerned with responding strategies by
partner to assertive act of initiator in family interaction. Three
categories were used, which have been already adopted in many researches
(Skill and Wallace, 1990; Comstock and Strzyzewski, 1990; Heintz, 1992;
Larson, 1993), as follows: conformity (going toward), rejection (going
against), and neutral (going away). These were consistent with follower,
opposer and bystander which Cantor and Lehr (1975: 177-204) classified as
basic parts to play in members of family (another one was 'mover' as
initiator).
Reliability. Two coders were trained through the preliminary test prior to
main analysis. All programs were viewed by both coders and discussed until
agreement was reached. Using Holsti's formula (1969), intercoder
reliability was 1.00 for family role; .91 for type of assertive strategies;
.94 for type of responding strategies.
Results and Discussion
Across 60 episodes from three dramas, there were 1,654 communicative
acts among family members: 63.8% (1,056 acts) between the basic family
members, 21.1% (348 acts) between in-laws, and 15.1% (250 acts) between
lovers were collected.
[Insert Table 1 here]
The most frequent interaction among family members were found between
husbands and wives (242 pairs) rather than between parents and children
(224 pairs). This result was different from those of American studies after
the 1980s (Skill and Wallace, 1990; Comstock and Strzyzewski, 1990; Heintz,
1992; Larson, 1993), in which the family interaction between parents and
children had the greatest portion.
Husband employed assertive power acts (53.5%) and rejection acts (26.0%)
more frequently than wives, and wives were more likely to engage in
conformity acts (29.8%) than husbands. But wives in American drama
demonstrated the fewest conformity acts and the most rejection acts of all
groups (Skill and Wallace, 1990). It suggested that wives in contemporary
American drama were described as more unreasonable or uncooperative
character than those in Korean drama. It seemed that there still remained
stereotypical husband-wife relationship in Korean family drama, implying
the patriarchal tradition in sociocultural background. But the fact that
wives showed not a few assertive acts (46.5%) indicated some change in
spouse relationships in Korean daily drama.
Mothers tended to communicate their children much more frequently than
fathers. But mothers were more likely than any other roles to engage in
assertive power acts (63.3%) and less often than fathers to utilize
conformity act (18.7%) to their children. It was not consistent with the
results of Skill and Wallace (1990) and Heintz (1992). Unlike American
drama, mothers in Korean daily drama were depicted as having the trouble
with their children rather than fathers.
Children were found to depend on their parents like American drama. But
daughters were likely to display less conformity act and more rejection
than sons, which indicated daughter's conflict with their parents. It was
confirmed again in the relationship between siblings. The interactions
between sisters showed the tendency of committing conflict more than those
between brothers; they displayed more assertive behavior (58.0%) and less
conformity act (13.0%) than brothers. This result was different from
American dramas in which brothers were least likely to demonstrate
supportive behaviors (Greenberg et al., 1980a; Greenberg et al., 1980b) or
demonstrated the fewest conformity acts and the most rejection acts of all
groups (Skill and Wallace, 1990).
There were found to be not a few interactions among in-laws and kinship
unlike American drama. The most conflictive relationship was found to be
between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. Mothers-in-law were most
likely to engage in power acts (71.4%) rather than any other family
members. On the contrary, daughters-in-laws were most likely to display
neutral acts (22.2%) of the family members. These results confirmed that
the most frequent theme in Korean drama has been the conflict between
mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law for a long time.
In the interaction between lovers, women were likely to engage in power
behavior less frequently and in conformity act more frequently than men,
and showed the fewest rejection acts (6.4%). It could be said that
dominance of male over female lasted both before and after marriage.
Focusing on the type of assertive strategies by initiator, power acts by
family roles were examined (See Table 2). In spouse relationship, husbands
were likely to exert more coercive power than wives. In other relationships
among family members, however, female members (mothers, daughters, sisters)
were more likely than male members (fathers, sons, brothers) to exhibit
assertive power acts, especially coercive power. Compared with the female,
the male tended to engage in legitimate power more often. Brothers were
most likely to exert legitimate acts of all roles.
[Insert Table 2 here]
Type of strategies used by initiator and responder in contact with each
other (Table 3) could explain these results more specifically, even if
somewhat descriptive. As it was already revealed, husbands as initiators
exhibited more coercive power than wives; on the contrary wives tended to
respond to their spouse by using more conformity act than husbands did.
[Insert Table 3 here]
In relationship between parents and children, the interactions between
mothers and children were found to be more conflictive than those between
fathers and children. Unlike Korean drama, more parent-child conflicts
occurred in interactions with fathers than with mothers, especially between
fathers and sons in American drama (Comstock and Strzyzewski, 1990; Heintz,
1992). The most distinct characteristic in parents-children interaction in
Korean drama was found to be relation between mothers and daughters.
Mothers displayed more coercive power and rejection acts to their daughters
than they did to sons. Daughters also tended to exert more coercive power
and rejection acts than they did to fathers. In Korea, the relationship
between mothers and children has been of great significance. The conflict
between mothers and grown-up sons tended to be provoked not directly but
indirectly mediated by daughters-in-laws or wives. On the contrary, the
relation between mothers and daughters had been regarded as more critical
in that they were strongly connected during their lifetime, in education,
marriage, childbirth and child-caring etc. (Hong, 1998).
In American drama, brothers tended to engage in a great deal of rejection
behaviors (Greenberg et al., 1980a; Skill and Wallace, 1990) or there were
common conflicts between brothers and sisters (Comstock and Strzyzewski,
1990; Heintz, 1992): sibling conflicts most often involved brothers. In
Korean drama, however, sisters were found to be located in center of
sibling conflicts; Sisters used coercive power and displayed rejection
response with one another more frequently than brothers did. The stories
about brothers in Korean drama have been generally characterized as being
the history of family. On the other hand, there is a tendency to utilize
the theme of sisters as dramatic device for presenting lives of different
type of female as a kind of rivals rather than from the viewpoint of blood
relation.
To explore whether there might be some change in characteristics of daily
drama with the times, episodes in each drama were compared (Table 4). It
was found that there was some difference in family relations as time
passed. The spouse relation became less and less significant unlike in the
traditional family dramas. On the contrary, the relation between lovers
increased obviously and the relation between parent and child tended to
increase though irregularly. Even if it cannot be affirmed positively from
these results only, there appeared to be a slight shift from conventions of
the traditional family drama to hybrid with melo-dramatic elements in
Korean daily drama.
[Insert Table 4 here]
Conclusion
This paper tried to analyze some power bases and responding type in family
interaction in Korean daily drama which the Koreans have enjoyed for many
years since the introduction of television. From a cross-cultural
perspective, it was examined in comparison with American drama.
Marital power in Korean daily drama still seemed to be male-dominant:
husbands more than wives directed and wives more than husbands sought
support. It was somewhat different from American drama in which husband and
wives became more and more equally and even wives displayed strong
rejections to their husbands. There might be such factors as level of
modernity, environmental components and traditional values between two
countries. But there appeared slight but meaningful shift in the responses
of wives from the passive to the active in Korean drama. It could be
regarded as reflection of sociocultural change present in contemporary
Korean society.
In interactions between parents and children, mothers were found to be much
more central figure than fathers unlike American drama. In family setting
of Korean daily drama, female as a wife was found to be less powerful than
a husband. On the other hand, female as a mother was found to be more
assertive and aggressive, ultimately conflictive to her children than a
father. It could be related with traditional and stereotypical role-taking:
men on the outdoor work and women on the housework. The fact that mothers
displayed more coercive power and rejection acts to their daughters than to
sons could be partly interpreted as the traditional family structure of
Korea. Mothers tended to be connected with their grown-up sons not directly
but indirectly through their daughters-in-laws, which were found to be far
less in American drama. In interactions between in-laws, therefore, the
most conflictive relationships were seen between mothers-in-law and
daughters-in-law.
In the relationship between siblings, sisters showed the tendency to be
more aggressive and conflictive with each other than brothers did. Contrary
to American drama in which daughters and sisters were characterized as
being of little consequence in the family power structure, those in Korean
daily drama seemed to be located in the center of conflict situation.
In general, the interactions between family members in Korean daily drama
had been characterized by conflicts of female members with the exception of
wife. Mothers, daughters, sisters, mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law were
arranged at the core of conflicts and struggles among the family members,
compared with their counterparts, fathers, sons, brothers, fathers-in-law
and sons-in-law, namely men.
The results of this content analysis suggested that there were some
differences in patterns of family interaction between Korean daily drama
and American drama, even if it would be uncertain to apply these results to
those between the East and the West. What made them diiferent from each
other? Above all, sociocultural background and historical contexts could be
mentioned as external factors. Cultural products including television drama
are created in the broader social contexts of one country and inevitably
influenced by them.
The discrepancy in conventions of drama between two countries would be an
important internal factor. Daily dramas in Korea had been generally created
in the view of female. For example, one of the most frequent themes in
Korean drama had been the conflict between mothers-in-law and
daughters-in-law. Those in real world had identified themselves with their
own characters in television drama and strongly felt a kind of 'emotional
realism' (Ang, 1986).
Another one was thought to be differences in cultural tastes and viewing
styles of audience. One of them is that the Koreans tend to prefer daily
dramas to weekly dramas unlike the Americans. It would be not easy to pour
much tension and stimuli into a drama type visiting home everyday, which
made daily drama deal with everyday lives of common people not dramatically
but realistically. In fact many viewers in Korea had liked daily drama so
much in that it could convey their own feelings and experiences in real-life.
There were some limitations in this research. Because the sample of this
analysis was selected among daily dramas of KBS to clarify the
characteristics of family drama, the results might not be generalized to
other dramas in Korea. Another inquiry on different kinds of dramas in
Korea will be necessary for developing the result of this study. And the
type of family configurations was not included in this analysis, which
would be an important factor to family interaction pattern as well as
family roles. In a society where a variety of families including nuclear
family have appeared, it would be essential to explore how the family
interaction by family role would be different according to family type.
Obviously, the further work must involve investigation on the function of
television as behavior model or construct of social reality. The results of
this descriptive study may be one of the useful bases for the research on
the social learning influence of family dramas on people, especially
children's real-life family interactions.
Table 1
Family Interaction Type by Roles
Assertive
Power
Acts
Conformity
Acts
Rejection
Acts
Neutral
Acts
Total
Basic Family Role Husbands
Wives
Fathers
Mothers
Sons
Daughters
Brothers
Sisters
53.5%
46.5%
60.4%
63.3%
37.5%
36.0%
36.8%
58.0%
17.8%
29.8%
24.5%
18.7%
35.4%
25.6%
25.5%
13.0%
26.0%
19.8%
13.2%
17.3%
20.2%
32.0%
25.5%
26.0%
2.9%
3.7%
1.9%
0.6%
7.1%
7.2%
12.8%
2.6%
100% (242)
100% (242)
100% (53)
100% (171)
100% (99)
100% (125)
100% (47)
100% (77)
In-laws Role
Fathers-in-law
Mothers-in-law
Sons-in-law
Daughters-in-law
Kinship(male)
Kinship(female)
65.0%
71.4%
5.5%
27.8%
50.0%
50.0%
11.1%
12.9%
55.5%
27.8%
35.0%
20.5%
11.1%
12.9%
16.6%
22.2%
7.5%
27.3%
11.1%
3.2%
22.2%
22.2%
7.5%
2.3%
100% (20)
100% (70)
100% (18)
100% (72)
100% (80)
100% (88)
Lovers Role
Men
Women
57.7%
42.4%
19.2%
32.0%
15.2%
6.4%
7.9%
19.2%
100%(125)
100%(125)
Total
49.4% (818)
24.2% (400)
19.8% (328)
6.5% (108)
100% (1,654)
Note: X2 (45, N=1,654) = 105.265, p<.001. Frequencies of communicative
acts are in parentheses.
Table 2
Assertive Power Acts by Roles
Assertive Power Acts
Coercive
Legitimate
Informational
Total
Husbands
Wives
Fathers
Mothers
Sons
Daughters
Brothers
Sisters
7.8%
1.8%
3.1%
7.4%
2.7%
11.4%
0.0%
11.1%
54.2%
49.6%
68.7%
67.6%
51.4%
43.2%
82.4%
44.4%
38.0%
48.8%
28.2%
25.0%
45.9%
45.4%
17.6%
44.4%
100% (129)
100% (113)
100% (32)
100% (108)
100% (37)
100% (44)
100% (17)
100% (45)
Total
6.1% (32)
55.8% (293)
38.1% (200)
100% (525)
Note: X2 (14, N=525) = 32.945, p<.01. Frequencies of communicative acts
are in parentheses.
Table 3
Family Interaction Type by Participants
Initiator
Assertive Type
Responder
Responding Type
coercive
legitimate
informational
conformity
rejection
neutral
Spouse
Relation
husband
wife
7.6%
0.0%
54.7%
51.1%
37.7%
48.9%
wife
husband
54.7%
37.0%
37.7%
54.3%
7.5%
8.7%
Parents-
Children
father
father
mother
mother
son
daughter
son
daughter
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
7.1%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
14.3%
66.7%
50.0%
87.5%
57.1%
50.0%
50.0%
54.5%
35.7%
33.3%
50.0%
12.5%
35.7%
50.0%
50.0%
45.5%
50.0%
son
daughter
son
daughter
father
father
mother
mother
55.5%
55.0%
64.3%
42.8%
50.0%
75.0%
63.6%
50.0%
33.3%
45.0%
35.7%
46.4%
50.0%
25.0%
36.4%
43.3%
11.1%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
6.7%
Sibling
Relation
brother
sister
brother
sister
0.0%
18.8%
0.0%
12.5%
70.8%
37.5%
70.8%
41.7%
29.2%
43.7%
29.2%
45.8%
brother
sister
sister
brother
46.7%
16.7%
32.5%
41.1%
53.3%
83.3%
47.5%
32.1%
0.0%
0.0%
20.0%
26.8%
Total
5.1%
56.9%
38.0%
48.9%
43.8%
7.3%
Table 4
Family Relations by Drama
For Your Love
(1997)
Can't Help
Loving You
(2000)
Yellow Handkerchief
(2003)
Total
Husbands/Wives
Parents/Children
Siblings
Lovers
55.7% (109)
25.3% (50)
15.2% (30)
3.8% (7)
33.8% (69)
46.8% (96)
7.8% (16)
11.7% (24)
25.5% (64)
30.9% (78)
6.4% (16)
37.3% (94)
100% (242)
100% (224)
100% (62)
100% (125)
Total
100.0% (196)
100.0 (205)
100.0% (252)
100% (653)
Note: X2 (6, N=653) =102.240, p<.001. Frequencies of communicative acts
are in parentheses.
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