The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea
South Korea’s gay community received heightened public attention in May 2020 when a news agency reported that a COVID-19 patient had visited several gay clubs in the multicultural district Itaewon, Seoul. Following this announcement, a plethora of news content was published across various online...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
University of Southern California
2023
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/91361 |
| _version_ | 1848765510983876608 |
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| author | Lee, Jin Lee, Jeehyun Jenny |
| author_facet | Lee, Jin Lee, Jeehyun Jenny |
| author_sort | Lee, Jin |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | South Korea’s gay community received heightened public attention in May 2020 when a
news agency reported that a COVID-19 patient had visited several gay clubs in the
multicultural district Itaewon, Seoul. Following this announcement, a plethora of news
content was published across various online media platforms. Through a case study of
how the news on the Itaewon outbreak spread from online news to YouTube, we
investigate the modalities of homophobic discourse and its circulation across different
online media outlets. By examining the interplay between the Korean online news
media (derogatorily called girregi journalism) and YouTube news channels in spreading
the Itaewon story, we discuss how the nationwide homophobic call-outs against the gay
community were instigated within an attention ecology. We argue that news media and
YouTube news channels work together as affective mechanisms that define the
dominant feeling rules about nonnormative subjects as a way of engaging with the
pandemic crisis, through the accumulation of affect and attention toward gay bodies. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:36:24Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-91361 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:36:24Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publisher | University of Southern California |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-913612023-05-09T07:43:38Z The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea Lee, Jin Lee, Jeehyun Jenny South Korea’s gay community received heightened public attention in May 2020 when a news agency reported that a COVID-19 patient had visited several gay clubs in the multicultural district Itaewon, Seoul. Following this announcement, a plethora of news content was published across various online media platforms. Through a case study of how the news on the Itaewon outbreak spread from online news to YouTube, we investigate the modalities of homophobic discourse and its circulation across different online media outlets. By examining the interplay between the Korean online news media (derogatorily called girregi journalism) and YouTube news channels in spreading the Itaewon story, we discuss how the nationwide homophobic call-outs against the gay community were instigated within an attention ecology. We argue that news media and YouTube news channels work together as affective mechanisms that define the dominant feeling rules about nonnormative subjects as a way of engaging with the pandemic crisis, through the accumulation of affect and attention toward gay bodies. 2023 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/91361 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ University of Southern California fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Lee, Jin Lee, Jeehyun Jenny The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea |
| title | The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea |
| title_full | The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea |
| title_fullStr | The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea |
| title_short | The Homophobic Call-Outs of COVID-19: Spurring and Spreading Angry Attention From Girregi Journalism Online to YouTube in South Korea |
| title_sort | homophobic call-outs of covid-19: spurring and spreading angry attention from girregi journalism online to youtube in south korea |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/91361 |