The Soft Power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS and Drama (Internationalizing Media Studies)

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. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Notes on contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: popular culture and soft power in the social media age PART I: Parasite 1 Producers of Parasite and the question of film authorship: producing a global author, authoring a global production 2 Parasite and the global arrival of Korean cinema: notes from the underground 3 The transcultural logic of capital: the house and stairs in Parasite 4 Gender and class in Parasite 5 One-inch-tall barrier of subtitles: translating invisibility in Parasite PART II: BTS 6 BTS and the world music industry 7 BTS, the highest stage of K-pop 8 BTS, alternative masculinity and its discontents 9 Transnational cultural power of BTS: digital fan activism in the social media era 10 BTS as cultural ambassadors: K-pop and Korea in Western media PART III: Drama 11 K-dramas meet Netflix : new models of collaboration with the digital West 12 Mediating Asian modernities: the lessons of Korean dramas 13 The rise of K-dramas in the Middle East: cultural proximity and soft power 14 Korean dramas, circulation of affect and digital assemblages: Korean soft power in the United States 15 North Korea and South Korean popular culture in the digital age Index "Focusing on the recent phenomenon of Korean popular culture, Parasite, BTS and drama at an unprecedented historic moment, this book explores the multifaceted meaning of the Korean Wave at micro and macro levels and the process of media production, representation, circulation and consumption in a global context as a distinctive and complex form of soft power. It considers the Korean Wave in the digital social media age and addresses the social, cultural and political implications in their complexity and paradox within the contexts of global inequalities and uneven power structures. The book explores the global success of the Korean Wave as a pronounced example of the crossover of culture, economy and politics and the emerging consequences of the postcolonial, alternative and competing power. The globalization of media content from once subalternized or peripheral nations such as Korea is a facet of de-centralizing multiplicity of global cultural flows today, emerging as subversive soft power resources that challenge the Western hegemony of dominant ideas, values and ways of life"-- Provided by publisher