1st Edition
The Soft Power of the Korean Wave Parasite, BTS and Drama
At this fascinating historical moment, this timely collection explores the new meaning of the Korean Wave and the process of media production, representation, distribution and consumption in a global context as a distinctive and complex form of soft power.
Focusing on the most recent phenomenon of Korean popular culture, this book considers the Korean Wave in the global digital age and addresses the social, cultural and political implications in their complexity within the contexts of global inequalities and uneven power structures. The collection brings together internationally renowned scholars and regional specialists to examine this historically significant, visibly growing, yet under-explored current phenomenon in the global digital age. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives from media and communications, cultural studies, sociology, history and anthropology, and including a series of case studies from Asia, the USA, Europe and the Middle East, it provides an empirically rich and theoretically stimulating tour of this area of study, going beyond the standard Euro-American view of the evolving and complex dynamics of the media today.
This collection is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Korean popular culture and in film, media, fandom and cultural industries more widely.
Introduction
Popular Culture and Soft Power in the Social Media Age
Youna Kim
Part I Parasite
1 Producers of Parasite and the Question of Film Authorship: Producing a Global Author, Authoring a Global Production
Dong Hoon Kim
2 Parasite and the Global Arrival of Korean Cinema: Notes from the Underground
Charles K. Armstrong
3 The Transcultural Logic of Capital: The House and Stairs in Parasite
Yoon Jeong Oh
4 Gender and Class in Parasite
Kelly Y. Jeong
5 One-Inch-Tall Barrier of Subtitles: Translating Invisibility in Parasite
Jieun Kiaer and Loli Kim
Part II BTS
6 BTS and the World Music Industry
Kyung Hyun Kim
7 BTS, the Highest Stage of K-pop
John Lie
8 BTS, Alternative Masculinity and Its Discontents
Gooyong Kim
9 Transnational Cultural Power of BTS: Digital Fan Activism in the Social Media Era
Dal Yong Jin
10 BTS as Cultural Ambassadors: K-pop and Korea in Western Media
Sarah Keith
Part III Drama
11 K-dramas Meet Netflix: New Models of Collaboration with the Digital West
Hyejung Ju
12 Mediating Asian Modernities: The Lessons of Korean Dramas
Lisa Y.M. Leung
13 The Rise of K-dramas in the Middle East: Cultural Proximity and Soft Power
Yeşim Kaptan and Murat Tutucu
14 Korean Dramas, Circulation of Affect and Digital Assemblages: Korean Soft Power in the United States
Ji-Yeon O. Jo
15 North Korea and South Korean Popular Culture in the Digital Age
Youna Kim
Biography
Youna Kim is Professor of Global Communications at the American University of Paris, joined from the London School of Economics and Political Science where she had taught since 2004. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of London, Goldsmiths College. Her books are Women, Television and Everyday Life in Korea: Journeys of Hope (2005), Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia (2008), Transnational Migration, Media and Identity of Asian Women: Diasporic Daughters (2011), Women and the Media in Asia: The Precarious Self (2012), The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global (2013), Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society (2016), Childcare Workers, Global Migration and Digital Media (2017) and South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea (2019).
