Softened Neo-nationalist Public Sphere and Affective Reception of 'Gukppong' Content

This study examines how “Gukppong content,” a form of soft nationalism prevalent on YouTube in South Korea, is amplified and reproduced through comment spaces and user participation. Using Sentence-BERT–based embeddings and K-means clustering on top comments from ten channels, the results show that Korean new nationalism is predominantly articulated through antagonism toward external “others,” particularly within culture war–oriented discourse. Moreover, higher author revisit rates in the “culture war/anti-China sentiment” and “historical/political nationalism” clusters reveal the presence of a loyal core user group that actively sustains these discourses. The findings suggest that new nationalist discourse is amplified and consolidated through affective participation in platform environments with limited critical engagement.