[Study 1] International Source of Hostility Toward Refugees, & [Study 2] Cultural Backlash to Globalization: Evidence from K-Pop

[Study 1] While refugee issues have been heavily politicized in popular host countries, politics is still in flux in countries with little refugee inflows. How do natives respond to refugee inflows in the absence of clear political cues? We examine this question using a case of the unexpected arrival of Yemeni refugees in South Korea in 2018, an ethnically homogeneous country with limited political discourse on refugees. Using supervised text analysis of over 150,000 posts on social media, we show that the arrival of refugees led to a significant rise in engagement and negative attitudes towards refugees without partisan polarization. In the absence of domestic partisan cues, individuals turned to international events, particularly the 2015 European refugee crisis. Hostility toward Yemeni refugees in Korea was expressed with frequent references to the European refugee crisis. These findings broaden our understanding of refugee reception beyond popular host countries and demonstrate how backlash against refugees can spread globally.   [Study 2] How does globalization influence cultural products, and how do consumers respond to cultural changes driven by global influences? This paper uses K-pop, a globally popular Korean music genre, as a case to examine these questions. While the industry has gained economic benefits as one of Korea's fastest-growing export sectors, its success has necessitated internationalizing content to appeal to foreign audiences, making it a prime example of cultural globalization. Analyzing nearly three million YouTube comments (2010–2023) with LLM-aided text analysis, we find rising anti-globalization and anti-foreign sentiments among Korean consumers as K-pop becomes more globalized. These findings illustrate how cultural globalization, despite its economic benefits, can provoke hostility when foreign influence is perceived as diluting national identity, underscoring the importance of cultural dimensions in globalization’s societal impacts.