South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea

Description

Over recent decades South Korea’s vibrant and distinctive populist culture has spread extensively throughout the world. This book explores how this "Korean wave" has also made an impact in North Korea. The book reveals that although South Korean media have to be consumed underground and unofficially in North Korea, they are widely watched and listened to. The book examines the ways in which this is leading to popular yearning in North Korea for migration, defecting to the South or for people to just become more like South Koreans. Overall, the book demonstrates that the soft power of the Korean wave is having an undermining impact on the hard, constraining cultural climate of North Korea. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Acknowledgments Notes on contributors Introduction: Hallyu and North Korea – soft power of popular culture Popular culture as soft power Circulation of meaning Contesting voices References PART I: Popular culture as soft power Chapter 1: Soft power and the Korean Wave Why South Korea should go soft A soft power strategy for South Korea Korean Wave popular culture as resources Korean Wave soft power and its limits References Chapter 2: The Korean Wave as a powerful agent: hidden stories from a North Korean defector Sever the chains of slavery Hallyu in North Korea Soft power Chapter 3: Popular culture in transitional societies: an Eastern European perspective Soft power of culture behind the Iron Curtain Cultural convergence in the digital age Hallyu and North Korean experience References PART II: Circulation of meaning Chapter 4: Black markets, red states: media piracy in China and the Korean Wave in North Korea Media piracy and informal economy in China The Korean Wave in North Korea Comparative perspective References Chapter 5: The Korean Wave: a pull factor for North Korean migration Influence of the Korean Wave on North Korean migration Curiosity about the outside world: “It’s in people’s DNA” References Chapter 6: Hallyu in the South, hunger in the North: alternative imaginings of what life could be Women, youth and South Korean media Hallyu and the Rise of Consumer Culture Hallyu and alternative imaginings of being and becoming Acknowledgment References Chapter 7: South Korean media reception and youth culture in North Korea Context and method Viewing the media as indicators of social change Youth culture in North Korea Cultural resistance and social change Hallyu: two sides of soft power References PART III: Contesting voices Chapter 8: Other as brother or lover: North Koreans in South Korean visual media Shiri, JSA and the emergence of Hallyu The “other” as “brother” North Koreans in The King 2 Hearts: nostalgia for a culture before capitalism Feminizing the “other”: from fighter to lover Using the “other” to define the “self” North Koreans in the context of Hallyu and soft power Note References Chapter 9: Discursive construction of Hallyu-in-North Korea in South Korean news media North Koreans as the proximate Other News media as frame and discourse Analyzing the discourse of Hallyu-in-North Korea Conclusion References Chapter 10: Webtoon and intimacy: reception of North Korean defectors’ survival narratives Daetgeul: a new form of intimate communication Active audiences in digital media culture The narrative of Rodong Simmun The structure of Rodong Simmun Cultural unification References Chapter 11: Revealing voices? North Korean males and the South Korean mediascape Moranbong: joining the country club Best Friends: best of intentions Engaging the ROK the BJ way Conclusion Notes References Index