Exploring Perceptions of Korean Cuisine: A Structural Topic Modeling Analysis of YouTube Videos

초록

This study explores how foreign tourists perceive Korean cuisine by analyzing English-language YouTube video contents through Structural Topic Modeling (STM). Leveraging a large corpus of user-generated content, we uncover key themes that shape international visitors' culinary experiences and cultural interpretations. The STM analysis identifies latent topics such as street food, communal dining, BBQ culture, food aesthetics, and authenticity. These findings reveal how tourists engage emotionally and symbolically with Korean food, highlighting the role of performative and visual elements in shaping food-related narratives. This study makes contributions the literature by applying computational methods to cultural tourism research and offers practical insights for enhancing Korea’s food tourism branding in the digital era.

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