Graphs 1 and 2 show that Daum had more content depicting American bodies, culture, or events than Naver in most sections. The sections of entertainment and webtoons (online cartoons) had a pattern of having almost no American content displayed over the 30 days. Meanwhile, the international news, living, and movie sections exposed American content that took up to 40% of the pages. These two patterns indicate what content South Korea can provide, and what Korean users seek and consume the most on these sections.

           As Jayeon Lee (2016) writes, visuals have more power than text in grasping the viewer’s attention by translating complex contents into more easily accessible forms and getting remembered longer than text in the viewer’s mind, influencing their “impression and judgment” (p.2). As images hold such effects, what gets displayed on portals influences the cognition of half of the South Korean population. Yet, I noticed that the image the content creators of portals use only depicts small fragments of the US.

           The news, economics, and books sections on portals were similar in emphasizing the American economists or politicians, almost all white cis-male figures in middle age, wearing button-down shirts and darker-colored suits. During my interviews, the younger individuals shared how they noticed the whiteness emphasized in the media we produce in South Korea, especially in the fields of TV series and webtoons. As H. Ryu pointed out, most figures, especially the cis-female bodies, were portrayed with “a pale white skin” on the webtoon sections on Naver and Daum (Personal interview. 17 February 2023). My interviewees and I discussed how many of the bodies we see on South Korean webtoons are drawn in style mimicking the Western figures, particularly the Caucasian bodies with white skin, light-colored eyes, and light-colored hair. We also discussed how the bodies we see on the TV series produced in our country preferred to put out their leading figures with white, tall, and thin appearances. Y. Ha pointed out that our country’s trend of tanning one’s skin in the 2000s changed to getting whiter skin in the 2010s and that there are numerous dermatology places in Seoul where people, particularly young female bodies, get white jade injections백옥주사 to make their skin color turn white (Personal interview. 24 March 2023). All three interviewees in their 20s and 30s emphasized how our country’s celebrities with their white skins shown on our popular media still are recognized as the standards for looks and that the South Korean webtoon industry that has grown big over the past decade now also put out the white body with lighter colored hair stereotypes.

           It is challenging to conclude that the whiteness emphasized in South Korean popular media is directly linked with the image of American figures. However, the patterns of showing the cis-gendered white figures from America and the image of the elites indicate what these portal curators want to make their users pay more attention to. Sangmin Kim (2022) states in his research that Naver and Daum have a growing number of consumers outside our country who use the portals to view webtoons and TV series. This means that the stereotypes of the white bodies that portals put out are not only leaving visual traces on the South Korean population but also on users from other countries, and further, suggesting the trend and direction of following the white bodies that South Koreans like to take.

           H. Ryu and I discussed how likely it is for South Koreans to link these images of white figures with America, especially for those who never went to the US physically. Ryu described how the use of social media, such as YouTube and Instagram, has played a vital role in showing her a more accurate image of America (Personal interview. 18 February 2023).