[KS] Correction: CFP, Theorizing the Global Popularity of South Korean Media within De-westernizing Frameworks

[David C Oh]

There has been a correction to the submission process for the following call for papers. Please send papers directly to Sunny Yoon at syoon at hanyang.ac.kr.

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 outside explanatory frameworks,. The purpose of this special issue is to call on scholars to articulate new theoretical directions that center around local contexts. We are not calling for a de-colonial abandonment of a Western canon but, rather, theoretical contributions that are not overly indebted to it, thereby avoiding incomplete explanations. 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 popular democracy outside of the unilateral construction of the West as the model of modernity and liberal democracy. 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 societies that postcolonial theories explain. Moreover, 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 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.
  *   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 Hallyuplatforms
  *   Theorizing the simultaneity of the post and the neocolonial in Korean media and popular
  *   culture and localizing cultural theories
  *
New methodological directions in Korean wave studies from the de-westernizing perspective

Papers due by December 30, 2025.

Submissions should be made directly to the special issues editor by email syoon at hanyang.ac.kr<mailto:syoon at hanyang.ac.kr> for pre-evaluation screening and revision by December 30.

Individual articles should be no more than 7500 words, inclusive of tables, references, figures, or notes. 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>.




--

David C. Oh

Associate Professor | Director of Assessment & Program Review

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications

315.443.4232 | dcoh at syr.edu<mailto:dcoh at syr.edu>



Syracuse University



Korean Pop Culture Beyond Asia: Race & Reception (U. of Washington Press) | Lead Editor

Navigating White News: Asian American Journalists at Work (Rutgers U.P.) | Lead Author

Mediating the South Korean Other: Representations and Discourses of Difference in the Post/Neocolonial Nation State (U of Michigan Press) | Editor

Whitewashing the Movies: Asian Erasure and White Subjectivity in U.S. Film Culture (Rutgers U.P.) | Author

Second-Generation Korean Americans and Transnational Media: Diasporic Identifications (Lexington Books) | Author
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