Since the late 1990s South Korea has emerged as a new center for the production of transnational popular culture - the first instance of a major global circulation of Korean popular culture in history. Why popular (or not)? Why now? What does it mean socially, culturally and politically in a global context?

This edited collection considers the Korean Wave in a global digital age and addresses the social, cultural and political implications in their complexity and paradox within the contexts of global inequalities and uneven power structures. The emerging consequences at multiple levels - both macro structures and micro processes that influence media production, distribution, representation and consumption - deserve to be analyzed and explored fully in an increasingly global media environment.

This book argues for the Korean Wave's double capacity in the creation of new and complex spaces of identity that are both enabling and disabling cultural diversity in a digital cosmopolitan world.

The Korean Wave combines theoretical perspectives with grounded case studies in an up-to-date and accessible volume ideal for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of Media and Communications, Cultural Studies, Korean Studies and Asian Studies.

About the Author
Youna Kim is Professor of Global Communications at the American University of Paris, joined from the London School of Economics and Political Science where she had taught since 2004, after completing her PhD at the University of London, Goldsmiths College. Her books are Women, Television and Everyday Life in Korea: Journeys of Hope (2005, Routledge); Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia (2008, Routledge); Transnational Migration, Media and Identity of Asian Women: Diasporic Daughters (2011, Routledge); Women and the Media in Asia: The Precarious Self (2012, Palgrave Macmillan); Global Nannies: Minorities and the Digital Media (in preparation).

Reviews

"A superb collection of essays illuminating one of the most remarkable phenomena of contemporary global culture. Essential reading for anyone interested in Korean and global culture today."

Charles K. Armstrong, Professor of History, Columbia University

"This highly coherent collection provides a comprehensive guide to the potentialities and limitations of what Youna Kim calls cultural cosmopolitanism."

Adrian Favell, Professor of Sociology, Sciences Po Paris

"Required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the larger social, political, and cultural implications of the Korean Wave."

Gi-Wook Shin, Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

"A welcome and valuable book that has something to offer to a wide variety of readers. Immensely valuable to the study of transnational popular cultures."

Elaine H. Kim, Professor of Asian American Studies, UC Berkeley

"As the video Gangnam Style has reached a global click rate of over 1 billion, there is perhaps no better academic response than the publication of The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global."

Joseph M. Chan, Professor of Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Book Information
ISBN 9780415712798
Author Youna Kim
Format Paperback
Page Count 234
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 380g