A Behavior Setting is a behavior–environment unit in which a particular activity and a particular space recur together as a pair, and urban design is the work of composing space by combining such units. The composition of these units, however, is no...
A Behavior Setting is a behavior–environment unit in which a particular activity and a particular space recur together as a pair, and urban design is the work of composing space by combining such units. The composition of these units, however, is not fixed; it is continually reconfigured as a society's lifestyle and communication technologies change. Reading how the space that holds a given activity has shifted over time is therefore a prerequisite for appropriately practicing urban design in the present. Yet it is difficult to secure sufficient records that directly document past patterns of spatial use. As a second-best means of analysis, this study draws on film: by comparatively analyzing the spatial characteristics of relationship formation portrayed in Korean romance films across periods, it analyzes the temporal changes in Behavior Settings.
The study examines twelve Korean romance films released between 1988 and 2024. Using Korea's individual mobile-communication penetration rate provided by the ITU and the World Bank, three stages that differ distinctly in character along the diffusion curve were identified and defined as Period 1, an era of face-to-face communication and relationship formation (1988–1992); Period 2, a transitional period (1998–2002); and Period 3, an era in which non-face-to-face communication and relationship formation became routine (2020–2024). The analysis follows Yin's multiple-case study design and operationalizes Knapp's relational development model into three stages—first encounter, the budding-attraction ("some") stage, and dating. All relationship-formation scenes in each film were exhaustively extracted and coded for spatial setting, behavioral pattern, and the involvement of digital media, while the public–semi-public–private classification of openness and the "digital space" category were assigned post hoc at the analysis-and-interpretation stage. The reliability of the resulting relational-stage classification was verified against an independent coding of all twelve films by a separate fellow researcher, yielding a mean scene-level agreement rate of 92.7%.
The analysis confirms that the Behavior Settings operating at the same relational stage change systematically across periods. The site of first encounter shifted from chance co-presence in physical space to contact based on occupational roles, and further to contact preceded by digital matching; the mediating function of the semi-public spaces that had accumulated intimacy weakened; and the site of bonding moved from symbolic landmarks to everyday pedestrian spaces such as riverside walkways and streets. The study formalizes these continuities and changes into six patterns of change from an urban-design perspective.
These changes are closely associated with the advancement of communication technologies, but they are also explained by sociocultural and urban-planning factors such as shifting social attitudes toward cohabitation and intimacy and the expansion of linear pedestrian infrastructure. In conclusion, this study suggests that urban space should be redesigned from an environment that produces chance encounters into a stage on which relationships already connected digitally are physically realized, and it proposes, as concrete directions, securing the sense of place of the pedestrian environment and exploring new roles for transitional spaces. Reading the spatial expectations that differ from era to era is the very starting point of better urban design.