Transformations of the Korean Media Industry by the Korean Wave: The Perspective of Glocalization

Abstract

Arjun Appadurai1 argues that the polycentric dispersion of the contemporary media, technology, and financial flows has progressed. This claim for popular culture scholarship draws an attention to how producers, filmmakers, and distributors within the marginal media industry have been competing with globally dominant media counterparts. Recently, South Korean (hereafter Korean) media industry has been encouraging reconsidering the role of nation-state in transnational cultural flows as well as in regional media collaborations. Unprecedentedly, the Korean Wave triggered the Korean media industry to take the forefront in international media exchange.2 The Korean Wave has becomes an indication of a global-local interconnection of media in respect to production, distribution, and reproduction. On the whole, multilateral streams of the Korean media content evoke a proactive transformation of the Korean media industry. While the Korean media industry had been regarded as a peripheral system, today the Korean media have reached broader than ever in the international market and have strengthened the scope of media practices and commercial impacts. It is noted that the heyday of Korean popular culture is a sign of the resurgence of Asian media after the Hong Kong film boom during the 1980s and the early 1990s.