디지털 공론장에서의 박물관 인식의 재구성: 「케이팝 데몬 헌터스」 이후 국립중앙박물관 관련 유튜브 댓글 분석

This study explores how audiences perceive and reconstruct a public cultural institution in the digital environment, prompted by heightened social interest in the National Museum of Korea following the release of 「KPop Demon Hunters」. YouTube comments are conceptualized as a form of the digital public sphere, focusing on how audience discourse constructs meanings around museum management and institutional identity. Using a grounded theory approach, 13,735 comments from 30 highly viewed YouTube videos were collected and analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding. The findings show that audiences do not regard the National Museum of Korea as a fixed institutional entity, but as one subject to continuous evaluation and adjustment through discussions on admission policies, merchandise, and operational practices. These discussions developed as interpretive contestations over the institution’s roles and principles, converging on the core phenomenon of ‘reconstructed publicness.’ The study demonstrates how audience discourse, mediated by popular cultural content, reshapes perceptions of public cultural institutions and suggests that audiences should be understood not merely as visitors, but as active stakeholders.