Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Liew Kai Khiun, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

ABSTRACT

The new Korean Wave, referring to the rapid growth of local cultural industries and popular cultures and their global penetration, starting in the late 2000s appears to be more intensive in its popularity. The new Korean Wave means the circulation of local popular culture, not only television programs and films but also K-pop and digital games, as well as animation, with the help of social media. The social media-driven new Korean Wave has aptly adjusted to global fans’ tastes in both production and consumption as Korean cultural industries have timely developed their popular culture reflecting the era of social media. In this presentation, I discuss the ways in which the Hallyu phenomenon is integrated into a social media-embedded cultural landscape in the global cultural markets. I will talk about the recent developments characterizing the Korean Wave in tandem with the cultural industries in the age of social media and explain the increasing role of social media and changing media consumption habits among global youth based on my ethnographic work. I finally map out why social media has contributed to the enhanced popularity of the transnational media culture produced in a non-Western region.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dal Yong Jin is Professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. He finished his PhD degree from the Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. His major research and teaching interests are on social media and platform technologies, mobile technologies and game studies, media (de-)convergence, globalization and media, transnational cultural studies, and the political economy of media. He is the author of several books, such as Understanding the Business of Global Media in the Digital Age (2017, Routledge), Smartland Korea: Mobile Communication, Culture and Society (University of Michigan Press, 2017), New Korean Wave: Transnational Cultural Power in the Age of Social Media (University of Illinois Press, 2016), Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture (Routledge, 2015), De-convergence of Global Media Industries (Routledge, 2013), and Korea’s Online Gaming Empire (MIT Press, 2010). He has also edited several volumes, including The Korean Wave: Evolution, Fandom, and Transnationality (Lexington, 2017), Mobile Gaming in Asia: Politics, Culture and Emerging Technologies (Springer, 2016), and The Political Economies of Media: The Transformation of the Global Media Industries (Bloomsbury, 2011). He is the founding book series editor of Routledge Research in Digital Media and Culture in Asia.

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