Communication, Digital Media, and Popular Culture in Korea

Contemporary Research and Future Prospects

Author: Kyong Yoon Yong Jin, Nojin Kwak, Peng Hwa Ang, Eyun-Jung Ki, Seungahn Nah, Ji-Hyun Ahn, Younghan Cho, Hye Seung Chung and Yongick Jeong

Communication, Digital Media, and Popular Culture in Korea

This collection provides a comprehensive examination of the growth of the Korean media and communications industry in recent decades. The contributors analyze such topics as the Korean Wave, newspapers, broadcast television, film, gaming, and new communications technologies.

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In recent decades, Korean communication and media have substantially grown to become some of the most significant segments of Korean society. Since the early 1990s, Korea has experienced several distinctive changes in its politics, economy, and technology, which are directly related to the development of local media and culture. Korea has greatly developed several cutting-edge technologies, such as smartphones, video games, and mobile instant messengers to become the most networked society throughout the world. As the Korean Wave exemplifies, the once small and peripheral Korea has also created several unique local popular cultures, including television programs, movies, and popular music, known as K-pop, and these products have penetrated many parts of the world. As Korean media and popular culture have rapidly grown, the number of media scholars and topics covering these areas in academic discourses has increased. These scholars’ interests have expanded from traditional media, such as Korean journalism and cinema, to several new cutting-edge areas, like digital technologies, health communication, and LGBT-related issues. In celebrating the Korean American Communication Association’s fortieth anniversary in 2018, this book documents and historicizes the growth of growing scholarship in the realm of Korean media and communication.

Critic Reviews

“This collection of essays provides multidisciplinary yet accessible insights into the ways in which popular culture intersects with communications in South Korea. The various contributors explain how popular culture in the country shapes and is shaped by communications laws, policies, strategies, markets, technologies, and infrastructures. This edited volume should be a useful reference for students and researchers of South Korean communications, media, and popular culture for years to come.”

-- Hyung-Gu Lynn, University of British Columbia
While Korean popular culture and digital media products have global prominence, less is known internationally about the evolution of Korean media and communications scholarship. This book plays a vitally important role in bringing together Korean academic work on media law, journalism, game studies, political economy, and cinema studies. It will feature prominently in any discussions about the relationship of Korean media and communication studies to the field globally. -- Dr. Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communication, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

About the Author

Dal Yong Jin is professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.Nojin Kwak is professor and chair of the Department of Communication Studies and director of the Nam Center for Korean Studies at the University of Michigan.

More on this Book

In recent decades, Korean communication and media have substantially grown to become some of the most significant segments of Korean society. Since the early 1990s, Korea has experienced several distinctive changes in its politics, economy, and technology, which are directly related to the development of local media and culture. Korea has greatly developed several cutting-edge technologies, such as smartphones, video games, and mobile instant messengers to become the most networked society throughout the world. As the Korean Wave exemplifies, the once small and peripheral Korea has also created several unique local popular cultures, including television programs, movies, and popular music, known as K-pop, and these products have penetrated many parts of the world. As Korean media and popular culture have rapidly grown, the number of media scholars and topics covering these areas in academic discourses has increased. These scholars' interests have expanded from traditional media, such as Korean journalism and cinema, to several new cutting-edge areas, like digital technologies, health communication, and LGBT-related issues. In celebrating the Korean American Communication Association's fortieth anniversary in 2018, this book documents and historicizes the growth of growing scholarship in the realm of Korean media and communication.