Corea del Sur, la reconstrucción de la masculinidad como imagen de marca de la diplomacia económica del estado South Korea in Reconstructing Masculinity as Brand Image of the State’s Economic Diplomacy NUR AZIZAH Department of International Relations Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Yogyakarta, Indonesia [email protected] AINUN DWIYANTI Department of International Relations Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Yogyakarta, Indonesia [email protected] Este artículo está sujeto a una: Licencia "Creative Commons Reconocimiento-No Comercial" (CC-BY-NC) RECIBIDO: 16/11/2020 DOI: https://doi.org/10.24197/st.2.2021.1-22 ACEPTADO:05/02/2021 Resumen: Aplicando la teoría de la diplomacia Abstract: By applying the theory of Economic Diplomacy económica de Rana y Chatterjee, la diplomacia by Rana and Chatterjee, Public Diplomacy by McClory pública de McClory y la identidad estatal de Maxym and State Identity by Maxym Alexandrov, the main Alexandrov, el objetivo principal de este estudio purpose of this study was to analyze the reasons behind fue analizar las razones detrás de la promoción de South Korea’s promotion of soft masculinity through la masculinidad suave en Corea del Sur a través de their means of public diplomacy, such as K-Pop and sus medios de diplomacia pública, tales como K- Korean drama. Particularly in South Korea, ideas about Pop y dramas coreanos. Particularmente en Corea how to look good as ‘a man’ are changing attitudes and del Sur, las ideas sobre cómo verse bien como "un also influencing the world. The study has applied hombre" están cambiando las actitudes y también phenomenology methodology and qualitative research influyen en el mundo. El estudio ha aplicado methods to understand the contemporary international metodología de la fenomenología y métodos de relations phenomenon which are soft masculinity and investigación cualitativos para comprender el economic diplomacy. The unit of analysis examined as fenómeno de las relaciones internacionales the subject is ‘South Korean government’ and the unit of contemporáneas que son la masculinidad suave y la explanation were the driving factors of why South Korea diplomacia económica. La unidad de análisis promotes soft masculinity. The data were taken from examinada como tema es el "gobierno de Corea del the secondary sources such as various books, journals, Sur" y la unidad de explicación fueron los factores reports, as well as documents from different relevant SOCIOLOGÍA Y TECNOCIENCIA, 11.2 (2021): 1-22 ISSN: 1989-8487 !" Nur Azizah, Ainun Dwiyanti impulsores de por qué Corea del Sur promueve la websites and a comprehensive and systematic analysis masculinidad suave. Los datos se tomaron de were applied. It was found that soft masculinity as an fuentes secundarias como varios libros, revistas, image that is promoted through the public diplomacy informes, así como documentos de diferentes sitios tool of South Korea, such as K-Pop creates the appeal of web relevantes y se aplicó un análisis integral y the country towards the global audience as it is a rarity. sistemático. Se encontró que la masculinidad suave South Korea has become the front liner of soft como imagen que se promueve a través de la masculinity by incorporating the image through its herramienta de diplomacia pública de Corea del economic diplomacy. This research further reveals that Sur, como el K-Pop, crea el atractivo del país hacia South Korea promotes soft masculinity in its K-Pop la audiencia global ya que es una rareza. Corea del product because the country is utilizing the uniqueness Sur se ha convertido en el líder de la masculinidad of soft masculinity as its brand image to enhance its suave al incorporar la imagen a través de su economic diplomacy for its cosmetic industry. diplomacia económica. Esta investigación revela además que Corea del Sur promueve la Keywords: Soft masculinity; Korean Pop (K-Pop); masculinidad suave en su producto K-Pop porque el Economic diplomacy; South Korea. país está utilizando la singularidad de la masculinidad suave como imagen de marca para mejorar su diplomacia económica para su industria cosmética. Palabras Clave: Masculinidad suave, Pop coreano (K-Pop), Diplomacia económica, Corea del Sur 1. INTRODUCTION South Korea is one of the countries that succeed in utilizing its entertainment industry as a tool for soft power diplomacy by its infamous cultural phenomenon of Hallyu or also known as the Korean Wave. The term Hallyu was coined in the 1990s after the liberalization of South Korean media. The phenomenon of Hallyu is used to describe the sentiment shared among Asian countries that enjoy the Korean pop culture. Hallyu has started in the last two decades ago, however the turning point of K-Pop itself started in the 2000’s. According to International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook Database, South Korea has become the 12th largest economy in the world and it is accredited towards its ability to utilize soft power as a foreign policy tool (Romano, 2018). During the post-Cold War, South Korea began to reform its democratic government which was followed by the lightening in its control over the television censorship in 1987. Prior to that, the television show and music are strictly traditional and patriotic; no pop, American-influenced music allowed until a pop-rock band called Seo Taiji and Boys emerged on television. To this day, there are three powerhouse music agency that produce K-Pop groups which consist of SM Entertainment, JYP and YG Entertainment which consistently and exponentially led the birth of Hallyu and sustained its growth and popularity in and abroad. SOCIOLOGÍA Y TECNOCIENCIA, 11.2 (2021): 1-22 ISSN: 1989-8487 South Korea in Reconstructing Masculinity as Brand Image of the State’s Economic Diplomacy #" The growth of Hallyu also helped South Korea to boost the potential of market expansion of the Korean brands. Following the footstep of Japan, South Korea has made an incredible progress in establishing a high technology, industrialized nation with the popularization of Samsung, LG, Hyundai and Kia. Thus, South Korea is ranked among the world leaders in the production of consumer electronics, smartphones and LCD television with annual exports worth 483 billion US Dollars with 15 South Korean companies are found in the list of Fortune Global 500 (Schoettli, 2019). The South Korean entertainment industry continues to thrive, following its agenda to conquer the market in the United States after their success in maintaining their foot in the Asia continent. In the recent years, there is a significant increase on the encouragement of soft masculinity among the global society to oppose the hyper-masculinity that is projected in the status quo. One of the main actors that helped the popularization of this phenomena is male artist of Korean pop music industry. Male Korean artist is infamous for their image as kkotminam (flower boys), which is portrayed to softer imagery in contrast to the hegemonic imagery of masculinity that believe male have certain expected gender roles to achieve social acceptance. During the old era, actors in international relation is assumed as genderless due to the idea that every individual is allowed to participate in the diplomacy and negotiation process. Compared to other disciplines, International Relations is one of the last fields that started to open up with the feminist perspectives (Wibben, 2004). However, through the emergence of the feminism and gender theory along with its development in the modern era, it becomes clear that international relation is actually “gendered”. Traditional scholars of International Relations rarely use gendered term and it creates the assumption that the actors are genderless, although it is generally known as a male-dominated field. Based on the explained research background, thus the author would like to explore the answer of “Why does South Korea promote soft masculinity in its K-Pop product?”. The structure of the paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 discusses the Literature Review, showing the characteristics of Masculinity as the New Norm, Soft Masculinity as Brand Image in the Economic Diplomacy of South Korea. The description of the Material and Methods is given in Section 3. The results are discussed in Section 4. Finally, conclusions are presented in Section 5 SOCIOLOGÍA Y TECNOCIENCIA, 11.2 (2021): 1-22 I SSN: 1989-8487 $" Nur Azizah, Ainun Dwiyanti 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1. Masculinity as the New Norm Sun Jung has introduced that the concept of soft masculinity popularized by the Korean Wave is product of “transcultural amalgamation” which she refers as chogukjeok. Jung argued that the reconstruction of South Korean masculinity is reinforced in order to attract global audiences by following process of modernization and capitalism that lead South Korea to its success in the various global markets. The term of kkotminam (literal meaning: flower boys) is stated to replace the pre-existing image of tough and macho South Korean men. One of the significant actors in introducing kkotminam is Bae Yong Joon, which starred in a Korean drama called Winter Sonata that happens to be the start of Korean Wave phenomena in neighbouring East Asia countries along with Southeast Asia countries (Jung, 2011). This imagery of kkotminam is later further popularized and developed into television series and Korean boy groups. Male Korean pop figures surfaced in the scene of entertainment industry and trademarked to dress well, have a delicate features and beautiful skin, wearing makeup and even to the extent of undergoing beauty surgery (Lovley, 2018). In the same year, Jo Elfving-Hwang published “Not So Soft After All: Kkonminam Masculinities in Contemporary South Korean Popular Culture” that argued the representation of soft masculinity in the Korean popular culture is a process of renegotiation towards the existing hegemonic construction of masculinity in the social structure and that it is beyond the cosmetic shift.