Introducing Korean Popular Culture

This new textbook is a timely and interdisciplinary resource for students looking for an introduction to Korean popular culture, exploring the multifaceted meaning of Korean popular culture at micro and macro levels and the process of cultural production, representation, circulation and consumption in a global context. Drawing on perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, including media and communications, film studies, musicology, cultural studies, sociology, anthropology, history and literature, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of Korean popular culture and its historical underpinnings, changing roles and dynamic meanings in the present moment of the digital social media age. The book’s sections include: K-pop Music Popular Cinema Television Web Drama, Webtoon and Animation Digital Games and EsportsLifestyle Media, Fashion and FoodNation Branding An accessible, comprehensive and thought-provoking work, providing historical and contemporary contexts, key issues and debates, this textbook will appeal to students of and providers of courses on popular culture, media studies and Korean culture and society more broadly.

Youna Kim is Professor of Global Communications at the American University of Paris, France. She is the author and editor of eleven books, including Women, Television and Everyday Life in Korea: Journeys of Hope (Routledge, 2005), Transnational Migration, Media and Identity of Asian Women: Diasporic Daughters(Routledge, 2011), The Korean Wave: Korean Media Go Global (Routledge, 2013), South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea (Routledge, 2019) and The Soft Power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS and Drama (Routledge, 2021).