Hybridity and the Rise of Korean Popular Culture in Asia

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Media,http://mcs.sagepub.com/ Culture & Society Hybridity and the rise of Korean popular culture in Asia Doobo Shim Media Culture Society 2006 28: 25 DOI: 10.1177/0163443706059278 The online version of this article can be found at: http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/28/1/25 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Media, Culture & Society can be found at: Email Alerts: http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://mcs.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/28/1/25.refs.html >> Version of Record - Dec 19, 2005 What is This? Downloaded from mcs.sagepub.com at FU JEN CATHOLIC UNIV N4 on March 9, 2014 Hybridity and the rise of Korean popular culture in Asia Doobo Shim NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE Over the past few years, an increasing amount of Korean popular cultural content – including television dramas, movies, pop songs and their associated celebrities – has gained immense popularity in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other East and Southeast Asian countries.1 News media and trade magazines have recognized the rise of Korean popular culture in Asia by dubbing it the ‘Korean wave’ (Hallyu or Hanryu in Korean). The Associated Press reported in March 2002: ‘Call it “kim chic”. All things Korean – from food and music to eyebrow-shaping and shoe styles – are the rage across Asia, where pop culture has long been dominated by Tokyo and Hollywood’ (Visser, 2002). According to Hollywood Reporter, ‘Korea has transformed itself from an embattled cinematic backwater into the hottest film market in Asia’ (Segers, 2000). Yet a few years ago Korean popular culture did not have such export capacity, and was not even critically acclaimed by scholars. For example,

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