Digital Media-Driven Korean Popular Culture Consumption among First-And-A-Half Generation Korean Immigrant Children

ABSTRACT Using photo-elicitation interview (PEI), this paper demonstrates how twelve first-and-a-half generation children of Korean immigrants in the U.S. engage in digital media-driven Korean popular culture consumption, which underscores their ethnic identity formation. The result shows that frequent cultural interactions via digital media help them maintain their ethnic distinctiveness. Thus, the findings of this study support claims by segmented assimilationist scholars that adopting American ways of life and learning to identify as an American is not inevitable for all immigrants and their descendants despite their long residence in the U.S.