The concept of the saturated self-refers to the dramatic expansion in the range of relations in which the individual is increasingly engaged (Gergen 1992). This increase is usually brought about by the accumulation of modern communication technologies, such the online radio, television, the World Wide Web, and mobile phones. As a result of transformations in everyday life, there is an expansion of the individual’s attitude, opinions, moralities, values and way of relating. This has promoted citizen journalism which involves the use of the Internet by the members of the public in spreading information. It can be only reporting news and facts that are largely assume by large media companies as minor. The spread of this news is propagated through blogs, personal websites, and social media accounts and so on.
Straits Times Online Mobile Print abbreviated as STOMP, is a Singapore-based web aggregator and online journalism web portal that display itself as a leading website for citizen-journalism in Asia. The website gives citizens a platform to take pictures with their mobile phones upload them and share opinions about what is happening in the picture. This has dramatically expanded people’s range of relations as they are not only spectators witnessing the incident and taking a picture, but they are also journalist and analysts.
In Singapore, the condition of saturation has lead to withdrawal in the sense of authenticity, and a diminishing in the required amount of time and attention devoted to any particular relationship. This, in turn, has resulted in losses of enduring emotional intensity and commitment. This social saturation has brought in a major shift in the conception self. For those citizens who take STOMP seriously have become too engrossed with it to the extent that their relationships with other people diminish since they have lesser time to meet the expectations of these arrangements.
Singapore was already importing various media products such as the American box office, East Asian TV drama series among others even before the Korean wave hit Singapore. Having a limited domestic production industry, Singapore can be termed as a consumer society highly receptive to flows from foreign countries, hence making it a chief site for studying the consumption of global popular culture flows. Past research on K-pop and its impacts in Singapore has tended toward Korean cinema and television dramas.
According to Williams & Ho (2016), people at most case tend to negotiate the cultural boundaries which represent passive consumption and the socio-psychological boundaries and active intelligence which are associated with the rationalization of behavior in respect to the social realities brought about by media and technology. In STOMP, we see stompers airing their views and having to decide what they want to be posted online. They use absolute terms such as “elitist” to depict people within this online articles. This has the effect of creating a given identity in the readers mind as their mindset is being framed. It also shows that identities can be negotiated and how it is sophisticated.
In conclusion for Singaporean fans of K-pop, considered social media accounts to be important as it provided them participatory pathways. Other communication apps, news and video sites were all used daily to keep the interaction between fans and idols. Social media networks facilitated the propagation of meanings within K-pop culture among fans that felt stigmatized by mainstream-media representations.
References
Gergen, K. (1992). The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life. Basic Books.
Williams, J. P., & Ho, S. X. X. (2016). “Sasaengpaen” or K-pop Fan? Singapore Youths, Authentic Identities, and Asian Media Fandom. Deviant Behavior, 37(1), 81-94.
