Based on the law 'Local Culture Promotion Act' established by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2014, the concept of cultural activity began to get harnessed in many different fields like social, economic, and political issues beyond pers...
Based on the law 'Local Culture Promotion Act' established by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2014, the concept of cultural activity began to get harnessed in many different fields like social, economic, and political issues beyond personal life. Within this trend, the nation accelerated the 'cultural routinization' policies, and 'Living Culture' became the critical constituents of culture promotion policies. As a foundation to expand cultural democracy and raise the quality of life, Living Culture serves as an essential concept to cultural policies of "improving quality of life of the nation." For the balanced realization of routine, local, and diverse Living Culture, it is necessary to prioritize positive assessment and appreciation of end-user.
Accordingly, this paper conducted a scale development research evaluating Living Culture by adopting the concept of reputation from a marketing communication perspective to culture and arts. Through this research, we collected conventional definitions, properties, and types of Living Culture, transferred them to the concept of reputation, and identified which factors and categories can compose the reputation of Living Culture. For this, we first set candidates for the reputation scales of Living Culture by reviewing and contemplating references and then assessed their appropriacy. Based on the reputation scales with approved significance, the credibility and validity of the items were verified by the preliminary and main survey.
Consequently, the reputation scales of Living Culture consist of 17 measurement factors sorted into four different structuring factors. The 4 structuring factors were named as <accessibility>, <program contents>, <locality>, and <operation method> considering each property of subordinate factors. According to the results above, correlations between structuring factors of Living Culture and participating loyalty were analyzed with a structural equation. By putting the structuring factors as the independent variable and participating loyalty as the dependent variable, we identified that locality, program contents, and operation method are the significant factors to participating loyalty. However, in the case of accessibility, though it works as a critical factor in evaluating the reputation of Living Culture, it does not have a significant effect on participating loyalty. To conclude, if a Living Culture constructs a favorable reputation on locality, program contents, and operation method, it will be possible to draw out high participating loyalty of Living Culture consumers.
By developing the reputation scale system, this study aims to examine the purpose and status of the Living Culture program and to reflect assessments and opinions of stakeholders by using the scale as a functional indicator. Furthermore, we expect the reputation scale to construct strategic implications in the long term for managing regional reputations and culture branding from economic and cultural dimensions.