Gangnam Style” and the Press Reception of K-Pop in Britain
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Gangnam Style’
POLITICS, PARODIES, AND THE PARADOX OF PSY’S ‘GANGNAM STYLE’ KEITH HOWARD∗ ABSTRACT In 2012, ‘Gangnam Style’ occasioned large flash mobs, three of the early ones taking place in Pasadena, Times Square in New York, and Sydney, Australia. Today, Psy, the singer of ‘Gangnam Style’, is regularly talked about as having brought K-pop to the world beyond East and Southeast Asia, and Korean tourism chiefs are actively planning a Korean Wave street in Gangnam, the district of Seoul lampooned by the song. But, ‘Gangnam Style’ has proved challenging to K-pop fans, who have resisted its gender stereotyping, its comic framing, and its simple dance moves that subsume the aesthetics of movement under a sequence of locations and action vignettes. At the same time, foreign success has given the song, and its singer, legitimacy in Korea so much so that, despite lyrics and video images that critique modern urban life and caricature the misogynistic failures of its protagonist, Psy headlined the inauguration celebrations of Korea’s incoming president, Park Geun-hye, in February 2013. This paper explores the song, its reception and critique by fans and others, and notes how, in an ultimate paradox that reflects the age of social media and the individualization of consumerism, the parodies the song spawned across the globe enabled Koreans to celebrate its success while ignoring its message. Keywords: Korean Wave, K-pop, popular music, parody, mimesis, consumerism, social media, Gangnam Style, Psy. INTRODUCTION In 2012, ‘Gangnam Style’ occasioned large flash mobs, three of the early ones taking place in Pasadena, Times Square in New York, and Sydney, Australia. -
The Globalization of K-Pop: the Interplay of External and Internal Forces
THE GLOBALIZATION OF K-POP: THE INTERPLAY OF EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FORCES Master Thesis presented by Hiu Yan Kong Furtwangen University MBA WS14/16 Matriculation Number 249536 May, 2016 Sworn Statement I hereby solemnly declare on my oath that the work presented has been carried out by me alone without any form of illicit assistance. All sources used have been fully quoted. (Signature, Date) Abstract This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis about the growing popularity of Korean pop music (K-pop) worldwide in recent years. On one hand, the international expansion of K-pop can be understood as a result of the strategic planning and business execution that are created and carried out by the entertainment agencies. On the other hand, external circumstances such as the rise of social media also create a wide array of opportunities for K-pop to broaden its global appeal. The research explores the ways how the interplay between external circumstances and organizational strategies has jointly contributed to the global circulation of K-pop. The research starts with providing a general descriptive overview of K-pop. Following that, quantitative methods are applied to measure and assess the international recognition and global spread of K-pop. Next, a systematic approach is used to identify and analyze factors and forces that have important influences and implications on K-pop’s globalization. The analysis is carried out based on three levels of business environment which are macro, operating, and internal level. PEST analysis is applied to identify critical macro-environmental factors including political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological. -
Kvarterakademisk
kvarter Volume 08 • 2014 akademiskacademic quarter The Concept of the Gentleman PSY’s “Gentleman M V” Jørgen Riber Christensen is associate professor at the Institute of Communication, Aalborg Uni- versity. Among his publications are Medietid 2.0 (2009) with Jane Kristensen, Marvellous Fantasy (ed., 2009), Monstrologi Frygtens manifestationer (ed., 2012) and articles within the fields of cultural analysis, the media, marketing, museology and literature. He is editor of Academic Quarter. Abstract The ideal of the gentleman has been globally reborn in PSY’s colos- sal YouTube hit “Gentleman M V”. This video thematizes the con- cept of the gentleman, but it is also a reformulation of gentlemanly behaviour. The article analyses the ideal of the gentleman in the light of its gender aspects and its class connotations. The hypothesis of the article is that the insecure status of masculine identity in an age of post-second-generation feminism demands the seemingly parod- ic treatment of the concept of the gentleman, as in this video. Yet this hypothesis is also a research question. Why is there this strong ele- ment of parody in the video? The answer to the question may de- pend on a consideration of contemporary male identities. It may also be based on a reading of how the music video incorporates these types. Three such types are described in the article: the new man, the metrosexual male and the new lad. It is the conclusion of the article that “Gentleman M V” incorporates the last two of these. Keywords gentleman, PSY, the new man, the metrosexual male, the new lad Volume 08 50 The Concept of the Gentleman kvarter Jørgen Riber Christensen akademiskacademic quarter The Music Video The YouTube music video “Gentleman M V”1 by the Korean star PSY has so far (January 2014) received 628,952,819 hits. -
Pop and K-Dramas: a Billion Dollar Business
Jain Muskan, Nelly Kavira Mangu Mangu, International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and Innovations in Technology. ISSN: 2454-132X Impact factor: 4.295 (Volume 4, Issue 1) Available online at www.ijariit.com K-Pop and K-Dramas: A Billion Dollar Business Muskan Jain Kavira Mangu Mangu Nelly Christ University, Bangalore, Karnataka Christ University, Bangalore, Karnataka [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT The paper demonstrates how the South Korean Pop music and TV-dramas have proven their mark around the globe. With the ever growing popularity of these entertainment methods from Korea, they are not only topping music and tv charts but also evolving into a business worth billions of dollars and most importantly it looks sustainable with the innovation and disruption they are bringing into the world market. Keywords: Pop Music, TV-Dramas, South Korea, Disruption, Innovation. INTRODUCTION When in the 1990s diplomatic relations were made between China and South Korea, South Korean soap dramas like ‘What is Love’ began airing on Chinses television. It soon gained a lot of popularity, with millions of Chinese tuning in to watch the show with their friends and family. Cut to some years later in the 2000s and now in the second decade of this century, there are hundreds of Korean TV series and Korean Pop bands making waves internationally. It is therefore evident how the impact fully the South Korean culture is being propagated across the globe. Being a country that boasts of heavy exports of cellphones and gadgets as such as well as cars and other automobiles have now added K-Pop and K- soaps in the leading export industry, quite possibly on the 2nd or 3rd place. -
The Semiotics of Internet Celebrity: Gangnam Style Case
Paper The Semiotics of Internet Celebrity: Gangnam Style Case by © Mingyi Hou (Tilburg University) [email protected] © November 2013 The Semiotics of Internet Celebrity: Gangnam Style Case Mingyi Hou Abstract: In academia, celebrity study remains an ever growing interest, especially in media and culture studies. However, few researchers have expanded their scope of exploration to the celebrities who gain stardom across national and cultural borders. The current study considers Psy and his music video Gangnam Style as a site for examining globalized language and cultural contacts. Its primary concern is to investigate Internet celebrity in the context of multimodal media representation and superdiverse semiotic repertoires. The study identified lyrics, beats, dance gestures, characters, objects and places as the major semiotic modes of expression in the video. More meanings are added while they are produced into the materialized forms. Guided by the audiences’ replies to the journalistic commentaries on Gangnam Style, the study found that the music video is a heterogeneous construct, whose semiotic resources are ordered polycentricically to resonate with different audiences. Key words: Gangnam Style, Internet celebrity, semiotic resources, multimodal discourse analysis, online ethnography 1. Introduction The current research considers “Internet celebrity” as a site for studying globalized language and culture contact. Its primary concern is to investigate Internet celebrity from the perspective of superdiverse semiotic repertoire (Blommaert and Rampton, 2011). The first purpose of the research is to identify the various modes such as lyrics and place references employed in the music video. The second purpose is to discern the audiences’ interpretations of the contents of the video ethnographically. -
Psy 200 - Principles of Psychology (3 Cr.)
Revised 8/2020 NOVA COLLEGE-WIDE COURSE CONTENT SUMMARY PSY 200 - PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY (3 CR.) Course Description Surveys the basic concepts of psychology. Covers the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, research methods and measurement, theoretical perspectives, and application. Includes biological bases of behavior, learning, social interactions, memory, and personality; and other topics such as sensation, perception, consciousness, thinking, intelligence, language, motivation, emotion, health, development, psychological disorders, and therapy. Lecture 3 hours per week. PSY 200 and PSY 201-202 contain similar course content. (Students who take PSY 200 cannot receive credit for either PSY 201 or PSY 202.) (Students who take either PSY 201 or PSY 202 cannot receive credit for PSY 200.) General Course Purpose To provide the student with an introduction to important psychological concepts and principles. Course Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: none. Course Objectives Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to: ➢ Identify the major fields of study and theoretical perspectives within psychology and articulate their similarities and differences ➢ Differentiate between the major observational, correlational, and experimental designs used by psychologists; critically evaluate real world information sources. ➢ Identify the major parts of the nervous system including the brain and explain how they reciprocally influence emotion, behavior, and mental processes. ➢ Explain how people change physically, mentally, -
The Effect of Hedonic Motivation and Consumer Attitudes Towards Purchase Decision on K-Pop CD Albums (Study on KPOPSURABAYA Community)
The Effect of Hedonic Motivation and Consumer Attitudes Towards Purchase Decision on K-Pop CD Albums (Study on KPOPSURABAYA Community) Devita Anggraini Lestari1, Monika Tiarawati2 State University of Surabaya [email protected], [email protected] Abstract: The rapid enthusiasm of Korean pop music or K-Pop is very high among the millennial generation. The mushrooming of online music streaming like Joox, Spotify, Apple music has made the CD album sales threatened. However, K-Pop fans apparently are still enthusiastic about buying a CD album even though the price is quite expensive. This study discusses the hedomic motivations and consumers attitudes towards purchasing decisions. This type of research used in this study is a combination of purposive sampling techniques. Data collection is done by using an online questionnaire using Google forms. The statistical analysis used in this study uses SPSS and data analysis techniques in this study use the classic assumption test, multiple linear regression analysis, and hypothesis testing. It can be explained that the results of the analysis show that hedonic motivations and consumer attitudes has significant influential on purchasing decisions. Keywords: Consumer Attitudes, Hedonic Motivation, Purchase Decision INTRODUCTION The mushrooming of boyband’s or girlband’s concert tours in Indonesia shows that how much Korean music is more interested in this country compared to other countries' musicians marked by a Super Junior concert titled Super Show 4 on April 2012 in Indonesia that makes Indonesian music fans love them. Indonesia became a stop on their concert tour, such as BIGBANG, 2NE1, 2PM, to BTS. According to Franki Raden (2014) in (Zaini, 2017), the development of K-pop due to the availability of infrastructure and mechanisms, Korea has succeeded in instilling awareness of the importance of music in people's daily lives. -
Between Hybridity and Hegemony in K-Pop's Global Popularity
International Journal of Communication 11(2017), 2367–2386 1932–8036/20170005 Between Hybridity and Hegemony in K-Pop’s Global Popularity: A Case of Girls’ Generation’s American Debut GOOYONG KIM1 Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, USA Examining the sociocultural implications of Korean popular music (K-pop) idol group Girls’ Generation’s (SNSD’s) debut on Late Show With David Letterman, this article discusses how the debut warrants a critical examination on K-pop’s global popularity. Investigating critically how the current literature on K-pop’s success focuses on cultural hybridity, this article maintains that SNSD’s debut clarifies how K-pop’s hybridity does not mean dialectical interactions between American form and Korean content. Furthermore, this article argues that cultural hegemony as a constitutive result of sociohistorical and politico- economic arrangements provides a better heuristic tool, and K-pop should be understood as a part of the hegemony of American pop and neoliberalism. Keywords: Korean popular music, cultural hybridity, cultural hegemony, neoliberalism As one of the most sought-after Korean popular music (K-pop) groups, Girls’ Generation’s (SNSD’s) January 2012 debut on two major network television talk shows in the United States warrants critical reconsideration of the current discourse on cultural hybridity as the basis of K-pop’s global popularity. Prior to Psy’s “Gangnam Style” phenomenon, SNSD’s “The Boys” was the first time a Korean group appeared on an American talk show. It marks a new stage in K-pop’s global reach and influence. With a surge of other K- pop idols gaining global fame, especially in Japan, China, and other Asian countries, SNSD’s U.S. -
Conceptually Androgynous
Umeå Center for Gender Studies Conceptually androgynous The production and commodification of gender in Korean pop music Petter Almqvist-Ingersoll Master Thesis in Gender Studies Spring 2019 Thesis supervisor: Johanna Overud, Ph. D. ABSTRACT Stemming from a recent surge in articles related to Korean masculinities, and based in a feminist and queer Marxist theoretical framework, this paper asks how gender, with a specific focus on what is referred to as soft masculinity, is constructed through K-pop performances, as well as what power structures are in play. By reading studies on pan-Asian masculinities and gender performativity - taking into account such factors as talnori and kkonminam, and investigating conceptual terms flower boy, aegyo, and girl crush - it forms a baseline for a qualitative research project. By conducting qualitative interviews with Swedish K-pop fans and performing semiotic analysis of K-pop music videos, the thesis finds that although K-pop masculinities are perceived as feminine to a foreign audience, they are still heavily rooted in a heteronormative framework. Furthermore, in investigating the production of gender performativity in K-pop, it finds that neoliberal commercialism holds an assertive grip over these productions and are thus able to dictate ‘conceptualizations’ of gender and project identities that are specifically tailored to attract certain audiences. Lastly, the study shows that these practices are sold under an umbrella of ‘loyalty’ in which fans are incentivized to consume in order to show support for their idols – in which the concept of desire plays a significant role. Keywords: Gender, masculinity, commercialism, queer, Marxism Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. -
Nutrigenetics and Sasang Typology
Food Sci. Technol. Res., +- (,), 23ῌ3/, ,**1 Review Harmonization of Eastern and Western Health Knowledge; Nutrigenetics and Sasang Typology ῌ Cherl-Ho LEE Department of Life Science and Biotechnology, Korea University, Seoul, Korea Received January ., ,**1; Accepted February +., ,**1 The completion of human genome project and the powerful tools of molecular biology together with bioinformatics technology give possibility to open the dialog between modern medicine and traditional remedies including Eastern medicine. Many of functional foods are originated from the traditional herbal medicine, and the scientific substantiation of the e#ectiveness of these products is required for the regulatory standards as well as for consumer protection. Needs for the reliable and e$cient methods of scientific substantiation are increasing, and nutrigenomics may provide a short-cut way to scientific evaluation of many functional food ingredients and herbal medicine which have been used in the tradition- al societies for thousand years. Studies to apply nutrigenomic methodologies to the objective classific- ation of Sasang body constitution types of Korean are reviewed. It is suggested that the empirical health food knowledge accumulated in the Eastern medicine may be explained scientifically by using the nutri- genomic methods, and it will contribute to open the custom-made nutrigenetic food age in the near future. Keywords: Functional food, nutrigenomics, Sasang body constitution typology Introduction are now considered as complementary and alternative Human perception on food has changed through histo- medicine (CAM) supporting the Western scientific medi- ry, from the survival food of the +3th century and before to cine. The Eastern medicine, generally known as tradi- the convenience food of the ,*th century. -
BTS ARMY's #BTSLOVEYOURSELF: a Worldwide K-Pop Fandom
IC-HEDS 2019 International Conference on Humanities, Education, and Social Sciences Volume 2020 Conference Paper BTS ARMY’s #BTSLOVEYOURSELF:A Worldwide K-Pop Fandom Participatory Culture on Twitter Listya Ayu Saraswati and Nurbaity English Literature Department, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Jakarta Abstract Korean popular music (K-pop) fandom is under the spotlight as the K-pop industry has rapidly grown transnationally. Fandom practices across national borders in social media have emerged as fans support their idols by buying the records, continuously discussing their personal lives, attending live music concerts, and supporting social causes in the name of the idols. This paper investigates fandom participatory culture with regards to creating and supporting social activism message on social media. By collecting and analyzing a large volume of fandom activity data from Twitter, this study considers the prevalence of fandom participatory culture and considers the Corresponding Author: importance of K-pop’s transnationalism with regards to social activism on social media. Listya Ayu Saraswati By analyzing the Twitter data of ARMY on #BTSLOVEYOURSELF, we demonstrate that [email protected] this participatory culture gives the fandom and their messages bigger effect on social media beyond the idol’s commercially-crafted public image. Published: 11 November 2020 Keywords: K-pop fandom, participatory culture, social activism. Publishing services provided by Knowledge E Listya Ayu Saraswati and Nurbaity. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the 1. Introduction original author and source are credited. For the past 20 years, the Korean Wave has experienced numerous changes, in geo- Selection and Peer-review under graphically and culturally significances. -
BTS a New Visual Style? the Maturing of K-Pop
BTS a new visual style? The maturing of K-pop In this paper I would like to take a look at three videos from K-pop’s newest sensation, BTS. By analyzing these videos I hope to uncover the emergence of a new visual style. One that is typically Korean, and that is able to positively distinct itself from their western counterparts. In the globalized pop industry, there is still a dominant rol for big American record companies and musicians, but it would be foolish to so say that they are the only power on the global playing field. Recently the biggest YouTube channel in subscriber count is the Indian Bollywood music channel T series, and Gangnam style was the first video to break the magic boundary of one billion views. BTS is currently doing a world tour in which they play 42 venues in roughly 8 months, accumulating to around a million visitors. On YouTube it’s rather difficult to find a BTS video that’s been watched less than a few hundred million times. Karaoke Americanism In the article Karaoke Americanism en Psy’s Gangnam style, a rather grim picture is paint about the future of K-pop. The article states that it might not be possible to acquire a sustained global audience: “However, at the end of the day, the new sounds of K-pop, these original copies, these absolute fabrications, are not likely to become popular beyond their cultural comfort zone” (de Kloet et al 125). Of course it’s a bit mean to attack an older article knowing these current stellar numbers, and that’s not the point of my article.