[On This Topic] Transnationality of Popular Culture in the Korean Wave (original) (raw)

Korean popular culture and its digital technologies are everywhere. From Japan and China in East Asia, the U.S. and Canada in North America, and to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil in Latin America, many global fans currently enjoy Korean television dramas, films, popular music (K-pop), and digital games. Once small and peripheral, Korea has now emerged as one of the most significant non-Western hubs for the production and circulation of transnational popular culture and digital technologies. Taking on non-Western local forms, Korean cultural and digital creations have rapidly become global sensations, as is especially illustrated by the music group BTS’s worldwide success towards the end of the 2010s and the early 2020s. Korea’s export of its domestic cultural goods and services to foreign countries has increased exponentially by as much as 44.1 times, from US$188.9 million in 1998 to US$8.3 billion by 2018 (KOCCA 2019). Over the past 20 years, the major characteristics of Hallyu have ...