Youna Kim (editor) - South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea

South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea

Over recent decades South Koreas vibrant and distinctive populist culture has spread extensively throughout the world. This book explores how this Korean Wave has also made an impact in North Korea. The book reveals that although South Korean media have to be consumed underground and unofficially in North Korea, they are widely watched and listened to. The book examines the ways in which this is leading to popular yearning in North Korea for migration, defecting to the South or for people to just become more like South Koreans. Overall, the book demonstrates that the soft power of the Korean Wave is having an undermining impact on the hard, constraining cultural climate of North Korea.

Youna Kim is Professor of Global Communications at the American University of Paris, France, 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 (Routledge, 2005); Media Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia (Routledge, 2008); Transnational Migration, Media and Identity of Asian Women: Diasporic Daughters (Routledge, 2011); Women and the Media in Asia: The Precarious Self (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global (Routledge, 2013); Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society (Routledge, 2016); Childcare Workers, Global Migration and Digital Media (Routledge, 2017).

Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia

Series Editor

Stephanie Hemelryk Donald

Editorial Board:

Gregory N. Evon, University of New South Wales
Devleena Ghosh, University of Technology, Sydney
Peter Horsfield, RMIT University, Melbourne
Chris Hudson, RMIT University, Melbourne
Michael Keane, Curtin University
Tania Lewis, RMIT University, Melbourne
Vera Mackie, University of Wollongong
Kama Maclean, University of New South Wales
Laikwan Pang, Chinese University of Hong Kong
Gary Rawnsley, Aberystwyth University
Ming-yeh Rawnsley, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Jo Tacchi, Lancaster University
Adrian Vickers, University of Sydney
Jing Wang, MIT
Ying Zhu, City University of New York

The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars in the West and the East, on all aspects of media, culture and social change in Asia.

For a full list of available titles please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Media-Culture-and-Social-Change-in-Asia-Series/book-series/SE0797

57 North Korean Graphic Novels

Seduction of the Innocent
Martin Petersen

58 Cultural Policy in South Korea

Making a New Patron State
Hye-Kyung Lee

59 Television in Post-Reform Vietnam

Nation, Media, Market
Giang Nguyen-Thu

60 South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea

Edited by Youna Kim

61 Russian Nationalism

Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields
Marlene Laruelle

South Korean Popular Culture
and North Korea

Edited by Youna Kim

First published 2019 by Routledge
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2019 selection and editorial matter, Youna Kim; individual chapters, the contributors

The right of Youna Kim to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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ISBN: 978-1-138-47767-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-351-10412-8 (ebk)

Typeset in Times New Roman
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

In todays digitally connected mobile world, the primary site for the development of shared global consciousness is located in the mundane, representational domain of the mass media and popular culture, mobilized through information and communication technologies. My research interest in the Korean Wave popular culture and North Korea was initially developed in 2007 with a chapter I contributed to a cutting-edge volume Media on the Move: Global Flow and Contra-Flow (Routledge, 2007) edited by a colleague of mine in London; and since then it has been continually expressed in my edited books The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global (Routledge, 2013) and Routledge Handbook of Korean Culture and Society (Routledge, 2016). As always, my publisher Routledge has been wonderfully supportive and cooperative, for which I remain truly grateful. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to Peter Sowden, Stephanie Donald, Rebecca McPhee, Stephanie Rogers, Natalie Foster and Felisa Salvago-Keyes for showing interest in this book project and thoughtfully assisting me throughout the publication process. The review comments were very useful, invigorating and insightful.

I am grateful to Anthony Giddens for his valuable advice and friendship, as always. Inspiring conversations with him, as well as his influential body of writing on globalization, self and social change have been sources of reflection in my work so far including this one. I also want to extend my personal gratitude to Ien Ang, Charles Armstrong, Chris Berry, Chang Kyung-Sup, Chua Beng Huat, Nick Couldry, Michael Delli Carpini, Terry Flew, Koichi Iwabuchi, David Kang, John Lie, Marcus Noland, Kent Ono, Eugene Park and Daya Thussu for their insightful works, encouraging words and helpful recommendations that have facilitated the research process.

This research was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant (AKS-2018-R01). I warmly thank my dedicated PA and friend Diane Willian for helping me wherever I am.

I am deeply appreciative of the contributors in this book for collaborating so willingly and delightfully. Thank you all.

Youna Kim
Paris

Nikolay Anguelov is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, the USA. Born in Bulgaria, he consumed illegal tapes of music shows and movies from the outside world and experienced turbulence with the regime change. He is the author of Economic Sanctions vs. Soft Power: Lessons from North Korea, Myanmar and the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015); The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry: Fast Fashion and Its Negative Impact on Environment and Society (CRC Press, 2015); Policy and Political Theory in Trade Practice: Multinational Corporations and Global Governments (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). His research is interdisciplinary, with a focus on diplomacy, international trade and cross-cultural communications.

Stephen J. Epstein is Associate Professor of Asian Studies at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, where he directs the Asian Languages and Cultures Program. He has published widely on contemporary Korean society, literature and popular culture. He has also coproduced two documentaries on the Korean underground music scene and published several translations of Korean and Indonesian fiction. His latest books are A Sourcebook of the Korean Wave (co-edited with Yun Mi Hwang) and the short story collection Apple & Knife by Intan Paramaditha.