Watch: What Indian TV channels can learn from South Korea’s over the top coverage of its elections
Pop culture meets Presidential elections on TV.
S Korea's exit poll coverage ripe with GOT themed graphics to entertain #PresidentialElection pic.twitter.com/IdrhwqjROQ
— Joseph Kim (@josungkim) May 9, 2017
In March, South Korean President Park Geun-hye was impeached owing to a bizarre political scandal. The impeachment was describing in a report as resulting “from her relationship with a shadowy figure from an obscure religious cult that critics have derided as a “shaman fortuneteller” with sinister, Rasputin-like influence over Park.”
Within 60 days of the impeachment, the Asian country was forced to find a replacement. Which it did, with the election of Moon Jae-in, a liberal.
But what made almost as much news around the globe round were the psychedelic visuals used by television channels to cover the presidential elections.
In one promo video, candidates swoop down on dragons, in sequences inspired from popular fantasy television series Game of Thrones (above). In another segment, straight out of augmented-reality game Pokemon Go, candidates are “captured” inside a pokeball (below).
....? pic.twitter.com/BfPtbo2ENK
— 리안🌸rian (@_riarian) May 9, 2017
The news channels seem to be competing with each other to produce still more outlandish images. Here’s a few more, that have WWE-style visuals and montages inspired by training sequences in the Rocky series of films.
SBS 개표방송 미친ㄴ거아니냐곹ㅋㅋ pic.twitter.com/tj1ijw5tV8
— 중간고사 망한 너츠양 (@kkuj31) May 9, 2017
And here come some more MBC graphics. Fighting~ pic.twitter.com/YuPseDR3hX
— Mark Russell (@themarkrussell) May 9, 2017
The presidential candidates seem in on the strangeness of election night. Here’s the three rivals for the chair, doing the popular internet dance, the dab, as their polling percentages are announced.
I'm 99% sure the Korean TV networks asked the presidential candidates to dab so they can create this piece of masterpiece. pic.twitter.com/J3Q6oDiFla
— Sung Min Kim (@sung_minkim) May 9, 2017
South Korea’s new president Moon Jae-in was sworn in on Wednesday, a day after his decisive win, and he vowed to “do everything I can to build peace on the Korean peninsula”.