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UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Spectacular Cities, Speculative Storytelling: Korean TV Dramas and the Selling of Place Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6722g87r Author Oh, Youjeong Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Spectacular Cities, Speculative Storytelling: Korean TV Dramas and the Selling of Place By Youjeong Oh A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor You-tien Hsing, Chair Professor Richard A. Walker Professor Barrie Thorne Professor Paul E. Groth Fall 2013 Abstract Spectacular Cities, Speculative Storytelling: Korean TV Dramas and the Selling of Place By Youjeong Oh Doctor of Philosophy in Geography University of California, Berkeley Professor You-tien Hsing, Chair This dissertation examines the relationships between popular culture, cities, and gendered social discourses, with a focus on contemporary Korean television dramas. Existing studies about Korean dramas have relied upon economic and cultural analysis to, in effect, celebrate their vibrant export to overseas markets and identify why they are popular in other East Asian countries. This study expands the scope into spatial and social realms by examining cities’ drama-sponsorship and drama-driven social activities. Deploying popular culture as an analytical category directly shaping and transforming material, urban and social conditions, I argue that the cultural industry of Korean television dramas not only functions as its own, dynamic economic sector, but also constitutes urban processes and social discourses of contemporary South Korea. Drawing upon interdisciplinary methods including ethnography and content analysis, I examine Korean television dramas from the multiple vantage points of producers, audience, storytelling, and city-sponsorship, and elucidate why and how these four arenas are deeply intertwined. Their mutual entanglement, in turn, requires us to see Korean television dramas as more than just commercial entertainment; they become a medium through which we can contemplate labor conditions in the cultural industry, the political economies of development in regional cities, and gender politics in Korea. I argue that the popularity of Korean dramas across Asia has turned the drama industry into an extremely speculative field into which numerous producers jump and gamble for the highly elusive mega-hit. Individual chapters address the ways in which the speculative nature of the industry has conditioned and shaped (1) the “last-minute, live production,” a collection of practices designed to reduce labor costs by minimizing filming dates, thus leading to extreme labor exploitation of workers, (2) active interactions between production and consumption as live production allows for the revision of ongoing narratives in response to viewer reactions to previous episodes, with the effects of encouraging consumers’ extensive discussions about dramas and even allowing female viewers produce their own virtual, social, and physical spaces, (3) addictive storytelling of dramas in order to quickly grab attention and retain viewer loyalty in the context of fierce competition for higher viewer ratings, and (4) city-sponsorship in which producers benefit from the drama-sets and funding that cities provide, while cities capitalize the affective representation of place in TV dramas that create an emotional connection between audience and place. 1 My dissertation makes the following theoretical contributions. First, by illuminating the ways in which the story-making in TV dramas and the place-making of cities intersect and mutually configure one another, the dissertation extends the literature on culture and space. One does not merely adopt the other; rather, both can be intertwined so that they are produced and consumed together. Second, the dissertation contributes to literature on urban development by showing that urban strategies can be tied up with the affective side of popular culture, not merely engaging in raw competitions to attract and capital and industries. Third, the dissertation bridges and elucidates the connections and interplay between production, consumption, and storytelling in television dramas—all of which are aspects that have conventionally been treated separately. Fourth, the dissertation contributes to literature on media capitalism through its examination of supply-driven, small-sized independent producers and their speculative nature as they engage in spontaneous, improvised practices of drama-making. Fifth, by demonstrating that Korean dramas have driven their female fans to initiate various drama-themed social activities beyond spaces of gendered confinement, the dissertation broadens the scope of literature on gender and popular culture. Here, my dissertation contests the notion that popular culture naturalizes and reinforces gender division, showing instead possibilities for popular culture to alter gender politics. And finally, taking into account political economic and urban/economic geographic approaches, the dissertation enriches the literature on the Korean Wave, extending textual and cultural analyses and connecting them to industrial and spatial analyses. 2 Table of Contents Table of Contents i List of Figures iii List of Tables iii List of Maps iii Acknowledgements iv Chapter 1 Introduction: Korean Television Drama Since Hallyu 1 Rewriting the Korean Wave 1 Speculative Media Capitalism 4 Building Connections between Popular Culture and Cities 8 The Media Industry and Urban Processes 10 The Collaborative Consumption of Popular Culture 13 Methods and Chapter Overview 14 Chapter 2 The Political Economy of Live Production 18 Geographies of the Korean Drama Consumption 19 Speculative Industry 23 1) Birth and Development of Korean Independent Producers 23 2) Marginal Producers 25 3) Pettiness and Speculative Nature of Producers 27 Live Production 30 Labor Conditions 33 Conclusion 36 Chapter 3 Korean Television Dramas and the Political Economy of 37 City Promotion Understanding the Promotional Desires of Korean Cities 39 City Promotion via Television Dramas 42 Synchronizing Place and Drama Production 43 1) Outdoor Drama Sets – Drama Production via Urban Production 43 2) City Placement – Drama Production via Urban Representation 49 Publicity and Drama Tourism 54 When the Tale Fades Away 55 Conclusion 58 Chapter 4 The Power of Collaborative, Discursive Consumption 59 Spectacular Reception in DC Inside 60 Discursive Consumption of Television Dramas 64 1) Appreciation / Suggestion 65 2) Entertainment 67 3) Information Sharing and Support 68 Interactions between Production and Consumption 70 1) Verification 70 2) Revaluation 71 3) Plot Change 72 Intimacy, Socialization, and Building Communities 74 1) Drama Characters, Stars, and Fandom 75 i 2) Emotions 78 3) Meeting Friends, Building Communities 82 4) Social Activities 84 Conclusion 85 Chapter 5 Addictive and Speculative Storytelling 88 Features of Korean Primetime Serials 89 Addictive Storytelling 91 1) “Mission” Historical Dramas 92 2) Modern Dramas 96 Speculative Storytelling 100 1) Japan as a Potential Sponsor 100 2) Product Placement 104 Conclusion 111 Chapter 6 Conclusion: Korean Dramas, Beyond the Cultural Phenomenon 112 The Globalization of K-Pop Music and the Spatial Implications of Drama Hallyu 112 The Growth of Cable TV Dramas and the Reality of Primetime Serials 114 Korean Television Dramas: Going Beyond the Cultural Phenomenon 115 Works Cited 118 ii List of Figures Figure 1.1. Locations of Five New Towns 11 Figure 1.2. Location of the Multifunctional Administrative City 12 Figure 2.1. Exports and Imports of Television Programs in South Korea 21 Figure 3.1. Outdoor Set for The Legends of Four Gods 44 Figure 3.2. Subtitle Statement of a Cities’ Drama-Sponsorship 45 Figure 4.1. Preparation of Snack Support 85 Figure 4.2. Support Items with Drama Images 86 Figure 4.3. Sample Photos of Review Books 87 Figure 5.1. Subtitle Notice of Sponsorship 106 Figure 5.2. Mont-bell Presented in Secret Garden 107 Figure 5.3. Maiim Vision Village Presented in Secret Garden 108 Figure 5.4. BMW Presented in Secret Garden 109 Figure 5.5. Café Bene Presented in Secret Garden 110 List of Tables Table 2.1. Exports of Korean Television Content by Genre 22 Table 2.2. Exports of Korean Television Content by Country 22 Table 2.3. Copyrights of Broadcasters and Independent Producers 26 Table 2.4. Accumulated Numbers of Dramas Produced by 28 Independent Producers (2000-2008) Table 3.1. Fiscal Self-Reliance Ratio 41 Table 3.2. Cases of the Construction of Drama-Sets 47 Table 3.3. Cases of City Placement 52 List of Maps Map 3.1. Locations of Outdoor Drama-Sets 48 Map 3.2. Locations of City Placement 53 iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank all my dissertation committee members at the University of California at Berkeley, where I have been privileged to purse my graduate work in the Department of Geography. My foremost and deepest gratitude goes to Professor You-tien Hsing, whose teaching of critical reading and analytical writing greatly helped me in conducting social scientific research, as my previous training was in engineering. Professor Hsing has been my role model as a woman academic and a mother, and has continued to inspire me both intellectually and personally. I am also

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