Semiotic Network Analysis of Local Popular Song: Focusing on Busan Tourism's Implications

Purpose The purpose of this research is to verify that how local popular songs lyrics describe the destination in tourism setting. While popular songs have been relatively overlooked from academic circle, they are valuable resources containing idea of contemporary people. Especially, tourism aggressively is involved with entertainment industry to gain competitiveness. Methods Study was conducted a semantic network analysis (SNA) by breaking away from previous research methods. The method is known to be effective in analyzing lyrics and their social context at the time. Results Total 29 popular songs themed Busan were selected and top 10 frequently appeared words in lyrics were found: Busan, Love, Port, Woman, Seagull, etc. Those 10 words, as core, were linked to other words and proved to be closely associated with. Three of centrality index were calculated: degree, between and eigenvector. Busan, Separation, Woman, Seagull, Memory, Man had relatively high centrality, which were connecting with other words, bringing about a change in meaning expansion and flowing the meaning. Conclusion The research is expected to extend the horizon of tourism in connecting with entertainment study including popular song. Results were interpreted and implication to local tourism and limitation were included at the end of research.