Crash Landing on the Philippines: Transnational Korean Drama and Internet Infrastructural Desires

Abstract

In 2020, the Philippines’ largest mobile network provider Smart Communications launched a year-long campaign with South Korean actor Hyun Bin, who gained high popularity among Filipino audiences through the Korean TV drama Crash Landing on You (TvN 2019-2020) aired through Netflix. This article analyzes media texts, government plans, corporate narratives, and infrastructure data to examines two ways that transnational media, such as K-dramas, function as cultural interfaces to disseminate and operationalize the infrastructural desires in the Philippines. First, Philippine internet service providers (ISPs) co-opt Netflix’s language of internet speed as a criterion of infrastructural quality, trying to secure the country’s public and economic recognition in Southeast Asia. Second, through the collaboration, local ISPs successfully translate K-drama’s cultural power into a public campaign presenting high-speed internet as not merely desirable, but a predestined future for digital consumers and the developing nation.