By Hong Seok-kyeong
Hallyu, or the Korean wave, seems to be having its day as of 2022.
Taking full advantage of digital transformation, Korean pop culture did not stop growing during the pandemic period. Beyond the huge global successes of BTS, "Parasite" and "Squid Game," viewers around the world are showing a growing interest in Korean culture and Korea itself.
As a former developing country, Korea has memories of difficulties, and Korean dramas and K-pop culture bear traces of suffering: colonial experience, war, poverty, inequality, the violence of excessive competition and the principle of neoliberal capitalism that compels constant self-improvement.
Including those in rich countries, most of the global audience share some or all of these experiences and can relate to the stories that Korean popular culture produces and propagates.
The Korean government has shown great interest in hallyu's influence because it is a big asset regarding public diplomacy. However, the government's previous attempts to promote hallyu have been negatively impacting Korea's long-term image of becoming an advanced country.
The top-down efforts to promote Korean culture, such as Korean food and hanbok, by the past conservative governments, have not been proven effective, and it has been found that the aspects of Korean culture which people around the world adore are rather influenced by media culture.
With the success of "Squid Game," the global media has been focusing on the making of hallyu. What happened to this nation which can culturally influence the world in that short time? An easy and simplistic answer is preferred over a contextualized and complex explanation: hallyu is a government-generated soft power created by the Korean government's support for production, exports and promotion abroad.
Just as the Korean government led the national economy through the consecutive five-year economic development plans, a solid misunderstanding is found, that hallyu is a successful governmental project. This is a biased belief that denies real data from the field, that hallyu is a cultural reception phenomenon which was generated by a regional and global cultural dynamic.
That groundless conviction is made from stereotypes that cling to Korea's image as a developing country, not recognizing Korea's cultural capabilities.
For Korea to get rid of its image as a developing country, the government must change its existing cultural policy as well as public diplomacy. Korea's pop culture is already advanced and avant-garde enough that the government does not need to give any guidance.
The government's immediate challenge is to change the interface between hallyu and the nation's interests by incorporating the changes in human and technological mediation.
For example, it will be preferable for government agencies to collaborate with new mediators such as one-person media like local YouTubers or collaborators in foreign countries who know why and how the local hallyu fans think about Korea and Korean culture.
Governmental agencies can support these new intermediaries as a powerful agent of Korean culture rather than promoting via direct communication. Which would be more effective, a government-organized cultural event with less than 1,000 cumulative participants or an individual YouTuber with hundreds of thousands of followers delivering regularly and naturally about Korean culture? These voluntary intermediaries are already playing a key role in maintaining and enlarging the global influence of hallyu.
Above all, the hallyu phenomenon is based on the success of Korean pop culture. It is a wave provoked by Korea's excellent cultural industry and amplified by overseas audiences' active reception. So, what the government must do now is provide fuel to maintain that energy, while treating pop culture properly as a modern cultural heritage. To this objective, priority must be given to the stability of jobs and securing working conditions for cultural workers.
A more proactive policy could be the establishment of an archive on popular culture and broadcasting. This is a dual-goal project which pursues the inheritance of popular culture as well as its assetization. The archive could give domestic and overseas cultural intermediaries the chance to use the audiovisual materials, enabling secondary creation.
It will also provide copyright holders with long-term secondary income for high-definition use of searched images. This solution is positive and designed for the long-term use of cultural products. It also incorporates the fandom culture and the particularity of hallyu as a digital cultural formation.
Hong Seok-kyeong is a professor of communications at Seoul National University (SNU) and the director of the Center for Hallyu Studies at SNU Asia Center. Previously, she was an associate professor of the Department of Information and Communication Sciences at University of Bordeaux 3 in France. Her major research and teaching interests include cultural studies, visual methods and communication, media culture and transnational and global popular culture. She published "BTS On the Road," a book that analyzes the success behind BTS' popularity, in 2020.
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| Hong Seok-kyeong, professor of communication at Seoul National University / Courtesy of Hong Seok-kyeong |
Taking full advantage of digital transformation, Korean pop culture did not stop growing during the pandemic period. Beyond the huge global successes of BTS, "Parasite" and "Squid Game," viewers around the world are showing a growing interest in Korean culture and Korea itself.
As a former developing country, Korea has memories of difficulties, and Korean dramas and K-pop culture bear traces of suffering: colonial experience, war, poverty, inequality, the violence of excessive competition and the principle of neoliberal capitalism that compels constant self-improvement.
Including those in rich countries, most of the global audience share some or all of these experiences and can relate to the stories that Korean popular culture produces and propagates.
The Korean government has shown great interest in hallyu's influence because it is a big asset regarding public diplomacy. However, the government's previous attempts to promote hallyu have been negatively impacting Korea's long-term image of becoming an advanced country.
The top-down efforts to promote Korean culture, such as Korean food and hanbok, by the past conservative governments, have not been proven effective, and it has been found that the aspects of Korean culture which people around the world adore are rather influenced by media culture.
With the success of "Squid Game," the global media has been focusing on the making of hallyu. What happened to this nation which can culturally influence the world in that short time? An easy and simplistic answer is preferred over a contextualized and complex explanation: hallyu is a government-generated soft power created by the Korean government's support for production, exports and promotion abroad.
Just as the Korean government led the national economy through the consecutive five-year economic development plans, a solid misunderstanding is found, that hallyu is a successful governmental project. This is a biased belief that denies real data from the field, that hallyu is a cultural reception phenomenon which was generated by a regional and global cultural dynamic.
That groundless conviction is made from stereotypes that cling to Korea's image as a developing country, not recognizing Korea's cultural capabilities.
For Korea to get rid of its image as a developing country, the government must change its existing cultural policy as well as public diplomacy. Korea's pop culture is already advanced and avant-garde enough that the government does not need to give any guidance.
The government's immediate challenge is to change the interface between hallyu and the nation's interests by incorporating the changes in human and technological mediation.
For example, it will be preferable for government agencies to collaborate with new mediators such as one-person media like local YouTubers or collaborators in foreign countries who know why and how the local hallyu fans think about Korea and Korean culture.
Governmental agencies can support these new intermediaries as a powerful agent of Korean culture rather than promoting via direct communication. Which would be more effective, a government-organized cultural event with less than 1,000 cumulative participants or an individual YouTuber with hundreds of thousands of followers delivering regularly and naturally about Korean culture? These voluntary intermediaries are already playing a key role in maintaining and enlarging the global influence of hallyu.
Above all, the hallyu phenomenon is based on the success of Korean pop culture. It is a wave provoked by Korea's excellent cultural industry and amplified by overseas audiences' active reception. So, what the government must do now is provide fuel to maintain that energy, while treating pop culture properly as a modern cultural heritage. To this objective, priority must be given to the stability of jobs and securing working conditions for cultural workers.
A more proactive policy could be the establishment of an archive on popular culture and broadcasting. This is a dual-goal project which pursues the inheritance of popular culture as well as its assetization. The archive could give domestic and overseas cultural intermediaries the chance to use the audiovisual materials, enabling secondary creation.
It will also provide copyright holders with long-term secondary income for high-definition use of searched images. This solution is positive and designed for the long-term use of cultural products. It also incorporates the fandom culture and the particularity of hallyu as a digital cultural formation.
Hong Seok-kyeong is a professor of communications at Seoul National University (SNU) and the director of the Center for Hallyu Studies at SNU Asia Center. Previously, she was an associate professor of the Department of Information and Communication Sciences at University of Bordeaux 3 in France. Her major research and teaching interests include cultural studies, visual methods and communication, media culture and transnational and global popular culture. She published "BTS On the Road," a book that analyzes the success behind BTS' popularity, in 2020.
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