Image vs. Reality in Korean-American's Responses to Mass-Mediated Depictions of the United States

This paper presents findings from a series interviews with Korean-American residents of Philadelphia. These interviews dealt with the informants pre-immigration experiences with images of the United States in movies, television programs, and magazines. The interviewees were asked to evaluate the role of these images in their decisions to immigrate and about their post-immigration responses to the relationship between these images and the reality of life in the United States. The analysis presented here focuses on ways in which reactions to the images might have been shaped by economic constraints and by values developed through formal education. Disciplines Communication | Social and Behavioral Sciences This journal article is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/466 Image vs. Reality in Korean-Americans' Responses to Mass-Mediated Depictions of the United States PAUL MESSARIS AND JISUK WOO This paper presents findings from a series interviews with Korean-American residents of Philadelphia. These interviews dealt with the informants preimmigration experiences with images of the United States in movies, television programs, and magazines. The interviewees were asked to evaluate the role of these images in their decisions to immigrate and about their post-immigration responses to the relationship between these images and the reality of life in the United States. The analysis presented here focuses on ways in which reactions to the images might have been shaped by economic constraints and by values developed through formal education. It is a commonplace observation that many immigrants are conscious of having been attracted to the United States by portrayals of this country in movies or other mass media. The study described in this paper was an attempt to explore certain aspects of this phenomenon with a particular group of immigrants. We wanted to know what, if any, specific features of American life as portrayed in the mass media had encouraged or strengthened these people's decisions to immigrate to the United States. We also wanted to know how these immigrants saw the relationship between the images they had derived from the mass media and the actual conditions that confronted them in their new lives: Did they feel that the reality of life in the United States had matched their expectations? Did they feel that the mass media had misled them in any way? Conversely, were there any ways in which the mass media had helped prepare them for what lay ahead? In analyzing these issues, we have paid particular attention to differences related to informants' gender and educational levels. It was one of our premises that how people respond to information is likely to be shaped by their sense of control over the circumstances of their lives and that, in the specific circumstances experienced by our informants, this sense of control may have varied considerably with gender and