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Viewing Modern Korean Social Issues Through BTS’ Lyrics: The Life of the Korean Youth in the Contemporary Education System and Society

Oh, Hannah Juyoung
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Abstract
One of the social issues that is commonly addressed in Korean popular media is the education system and its impacts on students’ self-worth. This is a topic that the K-pop group BTS addressed frequently in their earlier music—particularly in the songs “No More Dream,” “N.O,” “Spine Breaker” (“Deunggol Beureikeo”), and “Silver Spoon” (“Baepsae”). Although these songs were not in the Billboard charts, they formed the group’s image and identity as a band. Despite the fact that their songs are specific to the Korean context, their themes are universal so that a global audience can still resonate or connect in their own way. While it should be kept in mind that not all media depict real life well, this paper focuses on lyrics from four early songs of BTS and observe how well BTS captures the current zeitgeist or cultural climate of contemporary Korean students’ and young adults’ struggles and hardships. This paper was able to observe the social conflicts and struggles youth have in contemporary Korea. Based on the statistics and information provided by the Korean government and other research, it can be concluded that BTS represented such realities rather well.
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Submitted to the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.
Date
2024-07-05
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University of Kansas
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Keywords
BTS, Korean popular culture, Modern Korean society, Social issues, Education, Adolescence
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