The South Korean government has demonstrated a strong commitment towards the social integration of international brides and the children of mixed ethnic heritage by establishing 100 'multicultural family support centres' throughout the country. Given its record of opposing the long-term settlement of foreigners in Korea, this recent government announcement signals a very significant change in its policies concerning international migrants. Consequently, the proliferation of migrant support programmes bearing the title 'multiculturalism' unwittingly suggests that Korean society is receptive toward the internationalisation of families. In this article I show that the establishment of these support centres represents a governmental response to the accumulated societal pressure from below that sought to improve the precarious social conditions of international migrants and to embrace multiculturalism as an inevitable, but positive, social force. Despite their impressive scope and resource allocation, the contents and approaches of the newly emerging multicultural programmes reproduce, rather than minimise, the cultural hierarchy between Koreans and non-Koreans. I utilise the concepts of 'cultural paternalism' and 'cultural fetishism' in order to capture the manner in which the dominant members of Korean society define the terms of and approaches to dealing with cultural diversity, reduce the complex issues of social equality to cultural differences, and treat culture as a fetish by uniformly emphasising the expressive dimensions of culture.On 26 November 2008, the Office of the Prime Minister of Korea announced plans to strengthen educational programmes for the Korea-born children of 'multicultural families' . 1 This proclamation reflects a growing presence of international migrants in Korea, and the challenges posed by the increasing number of interethnic marriages.Joon K. Kim is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Sociology at Colorado State University.
Purpose
Using uses and gratifications theory as a guide, the purpose of this paper is to examine how fans are engaging with Major League Baseball (MLB) teams that are utilizing Instagram postings to demonstrate sporting, business, and social objectives.
Design/methodology/approach
An analysis of 1,500 photos (50 from each team) was conducted. A content analysis analyzed the content of the photo, and a textual analysis was implemented to examine the use of hashtags by the teams on their Instagram photos.
Findings
Posts that overly demonstrated the business and social objectives had some of the lowest numbers of likes and comments, indicating that fan engagement is not often achieved through these methods.
Originality/value
Results of this research demonstrate that while MLB teams are able to address their multiple objectives on Instagram, fans are not necessarily interested in all three of these efforts. Posts about on-field action, consumer buying opportunities, and charitable efforts were all created by the majority of teams, but the sporting objective posts had, by far, the highest average number of both likes and comments when compared to the charitable and promotional objectives of the teams. Therefore, the results provide some best practices for teams looking to use the photo and video sharing network.
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