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STUDY OF PARASOCIAL INTERACTION BETWEEN BANGTAN
BOYS (BTS) AND ARMY IN INDONESIA: THE MEANING OF ONE-
WAY CLOSENESS BETWEEN FANS AND IDOLS
Vidya Alisya, Sharfina Nurhayati, Rino Febrianno Boer
Institut Komunikasi dan Bisnis LSPR, Indonesia
Abstract
The relationship that exists between fans and their idols is considered to have a special meaning. The existence
of distance and time makes fans only able to see their idol from television or social media which happened in one
direction. The one-way relationship builds parasocial interactions between fans and their idols where fans feel
they understand, care, and sense how their idols felt. Parasocial interactions were experienced by fans and their
idols, including BTS and their fans called ARMY. This study uses a qualitative method. This research on BTS
and ARMY aims to find out what forms of parasocial interaction are carried out by ARMYs with BTS and how
ARMYs interpret these interactions. The research was conducted on six participants who are ARMYs. Data
collection was conducted by interview and literature study. The study was conducted in Jakarta from March to
July 2022. The research was conducted by linking the answers of the informants using Hoffner's four parasocial
interaction effects, which are sense of companionship, pseudo-friendship, role models in behavior, and personal
identity. Researchers found that the parasocial effect is described as a form of admiration of fans for their idols.
Also, ARMY considers that the parasocial interactions that occur with BTS have a positive impact and that
positive impact were implemented in everyday life.
Keywords
: communication; parasocial interaction; media
INTRODUCTION
The existence of K-Pop or Korean Pop fans has spread to various corners of the world.
K-Pop, which once sounded foreign, even often called "alay" fans who have negative
connotations, has now become part of pop culture or pop culture worldwide. Technological
advancements have also had an influence on the rise of K-Pop fans around the world. One of
the influences is the increasing number of social media users so that this facilitates access to
information and cultural exchanges from various parts of the world. As a result, people can
find it easier to find information about K-Pop and have an interest in it. This interest resulted
in a one-way relationship dynamic between fans and idols. The presence of new media also
provides dynamics to the form of one-way relationships that exist between fans and idols. In
terms of use, new media are more individual than old media. This difference was expressed by
McQuail, (2005) who revealed that through the level of interactive media use indicated by the
ratio of user response to message senders, the level of user socialization where new media are
more individual and not direct social interaction, the level of pleasure and interest of the media
used as desired and the high level of privacy for the use of new media. New media encourages
community creation and encourages more users so that this one-way relationship can be formed
(Webster, 2019).
Injuruty: Interdiciplinary Journal and Humanity
Volume 2, Number 5, May 2023
e-ISSN: 2963-4113 and p-ISSN: 2963-3397
Study Of Parasocial Interaction Between Bangtan Boys (BTS) And Army In Indonesia: The Meaning
Of One-Way Closeness Between Fans And Idols
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402
The occurrence of this one-way relationship dynamic is experienced by many fans who
idolize boy groups or girl groups from South Korea. Through their performances and music,
these boy groups and girl groups gained tremendous success and popularity, not only in their
own country, but also throughout the world including Indonesia. These fans have a community
from all over the world commonly called fandom and a huge fanbase. The one-way relationship
established between fans and idols through the media, has differences in the past and present
eras. In the past, communication technology was not as developed as it is now, so idol
interactions with their fans were more carried out directly than through the media. But now,
with the development of increasingly advanced technology coupled with the pandemic
situation, the use of media has increased, especially the internet. The advantage of the internet
is that there are almost no restrictions on space and time so access to obtain information is very
easy. This ability to access all forms of information also makes the world between fans and
idols even less distant. Fans A and fans B who both idolize the same artist can also easily
exchange information even if they come from different countries. Making it possible for artists
to be able to have fans in all parts of the world.
The K-pop artist with the largest number of fans today is BTS who has a fandom under
the name ARMY, especially in Indonesia. This is evidenced by the large number of tweets on
twitter using #BTS hashtags. Reporting from CNNIndonesia.com on (01/22) #BTS hashtag
also became the most used by K-Pop lovers in the country, #EXO and #NCT followed in
second and third place at that time. Further in CNNIndonesia, Twitter revealed that in 2021 the
conversation about K-Pop again dominated the conversation on Twitter with an increase in the
number of tweets globally from 6.7 billion in 2020 to 7.8 billion. This large number makes the
quality of the one-way relationship an inevitable new phenomenon at this time.
Figure 1. Countries with the most K-Pop fans
As already mentioned that one of the biggest fan members that exists today, is owned by
the boy band BTS which has fans called ARMY. Launching from usbtsarmy.com, the name
ARMY itself stands for Adorable Representative M.C. For Youth which was formed on July
9, 2013. The number of ARMYs is fairly large and spread all over the world. Indonesia itself
is the country with the most number of ARMYs compared to other countries, even in South
Korea itself. In the census conducted by btsarmycensus.com in July - September 2020, it shows
that Indonesia is ranked first at 80,895 (20%). Mexico placed second 42,819 (10.6%) then USA
33,891 (8.4%), Peru 20,988 (5.12%), Philippines 18,461 (4.5%), Russia 15,960 (4%), India