Chilean Hallyu Fans and Their Serious Leisure Practices in South Korea's Digital Public Diplomacy

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the digital public diplomacy of the Korean Embassy in Chile, with a focus on The Online Supporters program. Specifically, it examines whether the program fosters serious leisure of Hallyu fans, reflects the key characteristics of serious leisure as defined by Stebbins (1982), and contributes to the embassy’s digital public diplomacy. To achieve this, a mixed-methods approach was employed: an analysis of the content and the comments of the 123 posts created by the Online Supporters and published on the embassy’s official Instagram account between 2021 and 2024, followed by in-depth written interviews with program participants. The findings indicate that the embassy’s social media functioned as a platform through which both the Online Supporters and the public engaged in serious leisure. Furthermore, the six core characteristics of serious leisure were clearly reflected in the Online Supporters’ activities. This study confirms that the serious leisure practices of the Online Supporters and the digital public diplomacy efforts of the embassy have generated a synergistic relationship, which contributes to the advancement of Korea’s digital public diplomacy.