Dal Yong Jin [Simon Fraser University]: Transnational Korean Popular Culture in the Korean Wave Tradition: From K-film’s and K-pop’s Perspectives
Abstract
In the early 21st century, Korean popular culture, including Korean cinema and K-pop, have continued to expand their global reach. Even during the COVID-19 era, BTS—a seven boy band from Korea—achieved No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with new songs such as Dynamite and Butter. Korean films, including Parasite and Space Sweepers, have become popular in the global cultural markets. During the COVID-19 era, BTS especially introduced a new form of cultural activity, titled “Bang Bang Con: The Live”, on 14 July 2020. This live event was streamed over around 100 minutes remotely from a studio in Seoul, drew some 756,000 viewers from across the world. Fans from 107 countries or regions, including Korea, the U.S., the U.K., China, and Japan, logged in to view the online event. Space Sweepers was very popular on Netflix in 2021. As such, Korean culture’s global popularity continues, and global audiences and researchers together raise questions surrounding transnational flows of hybridized popular cultures in an era of new media technologies. This talk discusses the recent Korean Wave within and as a product of the hybridized transnational cultural flows of content and identity. It also discusses the significant use of social media and OTT service platforms. Flows of meaning and affect between Korean popular culture and global audiences are also addressed.
About the Speaker
Dal Yong Jin is Distinguished SFU Professor. He completed his Ph.D. in the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois in 2005. Jin’s major research and teaching interests are on digital platforms and digital games, globalization and media, transnational cultural studies, and the political economy of media and culture. Jin has published numerous books and journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews. Jin’s books include Korea’s Online Gaming Empire (MIT Press, 2010), New Korean Wave: Transnational Cultural Power in the Age of Social Media (University of Illinois Press, 2016), Smartland Korea: Mobile Communication, Culture and Society (University of Michigan Press, 2017), and K-Pop Idols: Popular Culture and the Emergence of the Korean Music Industry (Lexington, 2019). He is the founding book series editor of Routledge Research in Digital Media and Culture in Asia.
