Amidst the restructuring of the global media landscape, the cross-border distribution of cultural content via digital platforms is accelerating, bringing about fundamental changes in the nature of cultural exchange between countries. In particular, reality entertainment programs that adopt multicultural communication as their main narrative strategy are rapidly gaining audiences across borders through various media platforms, functioning as a key driving force for cross-media narratives and the spread of international culture. These programs have expanded beyond mere entertainment content consumption to become symbolic brands of transnational cultural dissemination, establishing significant recognition and influence. This study sets as its subject of comparison and analysis the representative outdoor reality entertainment programs popular in both South Korea and China: Running Man and its Chinese version, Bēn Pào Bā(奔跑吧). The purpose of this study is to examine the social and cultural contexts that drove the planning and broadcasting of the two programs, as well as structural changes in the broadcasting industry, and to empirically clarify how actual viewers interact with media texts. To this end, data from comments collected on Bilibili, a representative video platform in China, was analyzed in depth. Through this, the narrative strategies and audience response characteristics revealed in the format and content composition were derived. This paper examines the specific mechanisms through which media content promotes cultural exchange by tracing how these programs are received and recontextualized within a multicultural society. Ultimately, based on the analysis results, practical strategies for the planning and development of reality entertainment programswill be proposed. Furthermore, it aims to suggest directions for the production and distribution of content to enhance the quality of international cultural exchange.
刘杏 et al. (2025) studied this question.