Exploring direct and indirect cultural experiences: a study of global consumers’ Hanbok experience and engagement mediated via YouTube

With the rapid development of technology and media, people’s experiences of other cultures have shifted from direct only to a combination of direct and virtual experiences. This study investigated how global consumers directly and indirectly experience other cultures, mediated by YouTube. It focused on the consumer experience of the Korean traditional costume, the Hanbok. YouTube content focusing on Hanbok experiences was collected to understand the direct Hanbok experiences, while viewers’ reactions to YouTube content (i.e., views, likes, and comments) were collected to understand indirect Hanbok experiences. The analysis involved two steps. First, the latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling algorithm in Python was used to extract topics from direct and indirect Hanbok experiences. Second, simple regression analysis was conducted using numerical data derived from textual data through linguistic inquiry and word count to examine the relationship between direct Hanbok experiences via YouTube and viewer engagement as an indicator of indirect Hanbok experiences. The results showed that YouTubers’ Hanbok experiences were categorized into seven topics, namely novelty, sensory, daily, cultural, trial, pleasing, and intellectual experiences. Indirect Hanbok experiences were identified based on dimensions of consumer engagement, such as social, cognitive, learning, behavioral, and affective engagement. The regression analysis results revealed that cultural and affective Hanbok experiences significantly impacted consumer engagement. This study expanded the scope of research by exploring indirect cultural experiences mediated by a media platform.