[KS] CfP: Theorizing the global popularity of South Korean media within de-Westernizing frameworks

[David C Oh]

Call for Papers (special issue of Television and New Media):



Theorizing the global popularity of South Korean media within de-Westernizing frameworks



The flows of South Korean media and pop music (K-pop) across the globe (or hallyu) are among the most visible signals of a more multipolar global media culture. Although there has been a proliferation of research in what is increasingly called “Korean Wave Studies,” heretofore, most theory-building has relied heavily on explanatory frameworks developed outside Korea. The purpose of this special issue is to call on scholars to articulate new theoretical directions that center local contexts. We are not calling for an abandonment of a Western canon but, rather, theoretical contributions that are not overly indebted to it. We encourage scholars to push theoretical boundaries in order to make generative contributions that not only move forward the study of Korean media and, perhaps, the study of other East Asian media but that produce multipolar centers of knowledge production, which can contribute to a richer, global body of literature.



The counterflows of global Korean media have attracted growing academic interest in terms of emerging cultural diversity, resistance to “minor” cultures and the ability to envision life outside of the unilateral construction of the West as the model of modernity and liberal democracy. Currently, however, most efforts to theorize the global flows of Korean media and popular culture have applied existing Western theories without fully considering local contexts. There have been some calls to decolonize and de-Westernize the study of (East) Asian popular culture, but even hallyu studies that explain the global popularity of Korean media through post-colonial theories such as hybridity, self-Orientalism, or post-colonial desire still draw upon existing theories popular in the Western academy rather than generate a new theoretical ferment.



Although this work has been productive, the context in which these theories developed differ from Korea’s postcolonial condition. Unlike postcolonial states dominated by the West, Korea’s colonial subjugation was violently enforced by Japan, a regional neighbor, and was displaced by the U.S.’s imperial ambitions in the Pacific Islands and East Asia. The post-coloniality of Korea and Korean culture differs from the societies that postcolonial theorists examined. Moreover, the dynamics of globalizing Korean media and the current use of new media often fit uneasily. Korean media have heavily relied on new media strategies, and the nation’s cultural industries currently produce innovative digital content and platforms (i.e. digital games, webtoon, digital K-pop platforms). In the process, Korean media industries frequently intervene in the global political economic system by mobilizing popular participation worldwide through new media which raise new social and political issues such as affective labor and affective social movements.  As global popularity of Korean media matures within the existing global hegemonic order, innovative efforts of Korean media are oftentimes created for but constrained by its economic need to export its media contents within a techno global hegemonic system.



These transformations require more theoretical work and should move toward more nuanced explanatory frameworks. We believe that it is necessary to develop new directions in the study of global Korean media. The purpose of this special issue is to build new theory that richly draws upon the specific context of globalizing South Korean media. This call takes up a similar ethos to Korean media, which is created within its local context but with a motivation to move beyond national or regional boundaries. Topics that scholars might address include, but are not limited to:

  *   New theoretical outlooks in the de-Westernization of Hallyu studies
  *   Theoretical implications of new media use among global Hallyu and K-pop fans
  *   Indigenizing and localizing theories in the context of new trends of Korean media and counterflows to global hegemony
  *   Theorizing the simultaneity of the post and the neocolonial in Korean media and popular culture and localizing cultural theories
  *   Reimagination of de-Westernizing theories that take into account the creativity of Korean cultural platforms amidst dynamic changes in the global media sphere
  *   Counterflows of Korean media in the world hegemonic order and the theoretical implications of de-westernization
  *   Theoretical implications of transnational fandom in relation to their social networking and technological production of intimate fan-idol relations through new media platforms.
  *   Live experiences of global fans’ uses of new media and cultural strategies of popular democracy
  *   Theoretical issues of popular participation in innovative production and civic movements through global Hallyu platforms
  *   New methodological directions in Korean wave studies from the de-westernizing perspective



Papers due by December 30, 2025.

Submissions should be made through the journal website, https://journals.sagepub.com/author-instructions/TVN. Submissions should write the name of the Special Issue in the “Cover Letter.” Individual articles should be no more than 7500 words inclusive. Please adhere to the journal’s submission guidelines, http://www.sagepub.com/upm-data/45650_Manuscript_Submission.pdf



Should you have any queries, feel free to forward it to Dr. Sunny Yoon at syoon at hanyang.ac.kr<mailto:syoon at hanyang.ac.kr>.



Guest editors

Dr. Sunny Yoon is a Professor of Media and Communication at Hanyang University in South Korea. She has published widely on cultural studies, visual culture and ethnographic studies of media audiences. Her research also includes new technologies including digital games, social media, AI and digital media from the cultural studies perspective. She has authored numerous books including the monograph, Social media and cultural politics of Korean pop culture in East Asia (Routledge 2023).



David Oh is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communications in the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He has authored books about Asian Americans and media and has edited books in critical Korean popular culture studies. In addition, he has published roughly 50 peer-reviewed essays in journals and edited collections, sits on eleven Editorial Boards in communication, cultural studies, fan studies, and media studies. In 2018-19, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.



Note: No payment from authors is required.


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David C. Oh
Associate Professor | S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
315.443.4232 | dcoh at syr.edu<mailto:dcoh at syr.edu>

Syracuse University

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