Content Analysis on the Graphic Images of PR Posters of anEthnic Festival: Sociological Study of Higashikujo MadangFestival in Kyoto

This article tries to show how an ethnic festival can be analyzed sociologically by seeing it as a multi-dimensional expression of contents. The festival taken up here is Higashikujo Madang (i.e. plaza) which was initiated in 1993 by the resident Koreans and collaborating Japanese active in Higashikujyo area, south of the city of Kyoto, Japan. The major focus is on the twenty different graphic images presented each year on the PR poster from 1993 version to that of 2012. By roughly coding the elements of each image, two aspects of the festival are found, that is to say static and dynamic. The former shows that this festival is organized by two poles, one concerning the expression and transmission of ethnic cultures and the other concerning the effort in embedding itself in the local Higashikujyo community. The latter, i.e. the dynamic aspects, shows that this festival has followed, over the twenty-year period, several stages of development. By dividing into five periods, it is shown that the festival has gradually gained confidence in itself and started to act as if the existence of the festival is now taken for granted. As a concluding remark, the efficacy and possibility of content analysis on the ethnic festival are examined