The Korean Wave From A Private Commodity To A Public Good

The title of this book, The Korean Wave: from a Private Commodity to a Public Good, refers to the idea that the Korean Wave has now crossed its nation’s borders and become an international public good. Because the Korean Wave has so far surpassed its national borders to become a subject of global attention, we consider the Korean Wave through the lenses of power, interest, identity, politicization, and the “anti-Korean wave”. “In this context, we are proud to have supported the work that has led to this publication. We congratulate the editors on promoting a unique interdisciplinary perspective on popular culture and international relations, featuring contributions by both humanists and social scientists, and focusing on a hugely signifcant transcultural phenomenon - the Korean Wave - that originated in Asia yet spread across the globe. The questions of identity, interest, and power raised by this publication, based on a series of conferences held on our campus, are as signifcant as they are innovative. I hope you, the reader, will be inspired by this collection to pursue your own inquiries and further develop the study of Korean culture in global context.” - Michel Hockx, Director of Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, University of Notre Dame

At this fascinating historical moment, this timely collection explores the new meaning of the Korean Wave and the process of media production, representation, distribution and consumption in a global context as a distinctive and complex form of soft power. Focusing on the most recent phenomenon of Korean popular culture, this book considers the Korean Wave in the global digital age and addresses the social, cultural and political implications in their complexity within the contexts of global inequalities and uneven power structures. The collection brings together internationally renowned scholars and regional specialists to examine this historically significant, visibly growing, yet under-explored current phenomenon in the global digital age. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives from media and communications, cultural studies, sociology, history and anthropology, and including a series of case studies from Asia, the USA, Europe and the Middle East, it provides an empirically rich and theoretically stimulating tour of this area of study, going beyond the standard Euro-American view of the evolving and complex dynamics of the media today. This collection is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Korean popular culture and in film, media, fandom and cultural industries more widely.

The Routledge Handbook of Asian Linguistics provides a comprehensive overview of the ways in which Asian languages should be conceptualized as a whole, the distinct characteristics of each language group, and the relationships and results of interactions between the languages and language families in Asia. Asia is the largest and the most populous continent on Earth, and the site of many of the first civilizations. This Handbook aims to provide a systematic overview of Asian languages in both theoretical and functional perspectives, optimally combining the two in intercultural settings. In other words, the text will provide a reference for researchers of individual Asian languages or language groups against the background of the entire range of Asian languages. Not only does the Handbook act as a reference to a particular language, it also connects each language to other Asian languages in the perspective of the entire Asian continent. Cultural roles and communicative functions of language are also emphasized as an important domain where the various Asian languages interact and shape each other. With extensive coverage of both theoretical and applied linguistic topics, The Routledge Handbook of Asian Linguistics is an indispensable resource for students and researchers working in this area.

The rise in popularity of South Korean entertainment and culture began and is promoted as an official policy of the Korean government to revive the country's economy. This study examines cultural production and consumption, glocalization, the West versus. Asia, global race consciousness, and changing views of masculinity and femininity.

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.

East Asia is a most dynamic region and its fast developing higher education and research systems are gathering great momentum. East Asian higher education has common cultural roots in Chinese civilization, and in indigenous traditions, each country has been shaped in different ways by Western intervention, and all are building global strategies. Shared educational agendas combine with long political tensions and rising national identities. Hope and fear touch each other. What are the prospects for regional harmony-in-diversity? How do internationalization and indigenization interplay in higher education in this remarkable region, where so much of the future of humanity will be decided? Experts from Australia, China mainland, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the UK and Vietnam probe these dynamics, with original perspectives, robust evidence and brilliant writing. Changing Higher Education in East Asia deepens our understanding of internationalization and globalization agendas such as world-class universities and international students. It takes readers further, exploring the role of higher education in furthering the global public and common good, world citizenship education, the internationalization of the humanities and social sciences, geopolitics and higher education development, cross-border academic mobility, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on regional student mobility, and future regionalization in East Asia.

This collection examines the spread and popularity of South Korean popular culture and its global effects over the last twenty years. The contributors analyze the theoretical and institutional history of this development, its relationship with other globalizing forces, and the industrialization of cultural production in South Korea.