Copyright by Hyeri Jung 2017 The Dissertation Committee for Hyeri Jung Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Transcultural Media and the Soft Power of the Korean Wave: A Reversed Ethnographic Approach to U.S. Fans’ Reception of Korean Popular Culture Committee: Thomas Johnson, Co-Supervisor Joseph Straubhaar, Co-Supervisor Stephen Reese Mary Bock Suzanne Scott Transcultural Media and the Soft Power of the Korean Wave: A Reversed Ethnographic Approach to U.S. Fans’ Reception of Korean Popular Culture by Hyeri Jung Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2017 Dedication To God, my families, and the loved ones Acknowledgements I dedicate my dissertation to God, my families, and the loved ones. I would not be where I am now without the endless support and love from my family: Mom, dad, and my older brother. I love you from the bottom of my heart. I also would like to express my sincere gratitude for Dr. Joe Straubhaar and Dr. Tom Johnson for their continuous help and guidance on my dissertation. My beloved friends in Korea and the US: Thank you for always being there for me. My dearest informants: You have given me countless ideas, challenged me, and most of all, shown me the values I was not aware of. Salloong: Your love and understanding have made me go through even the darkest and toughest days. You are the sunshine and the apple of my eye. I am grateful for a lot of things, and I hope my journey to better understand communication in pursuit of social betterment does not stop here. v Transcultural Media and the Soft Power of the Korean Wave: A Reversed Ethnographic Approach to U.S. Fans’ Reception of Korean Popular Culture Hyeri Jung, Ph. D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2017 Supervisors: Thomas Johnson and Joseph Straubhaar This dissertation unravels dynamic interactions between Korean popular culture and its fans in the United States, how cultural hybridity of the Korean Wave un/consciously facilitates soft power, and what sociocultural implications it might yield in global/international contexts. Employing various theoretical frameworks of globalization, critical/cultural media studies, hybridity, soft power, and fan studies, I conduct a qualitative methodological approach of what I call “reversed media ethnography”—examining the contraflow of Korean media culture—on U.S. fans. I employ various qualitative and interpretive techniques including grounded theory to analyze the rich corpus of data—participant observation and qualitative interviews—I collected over a period of two years to examine the nature of transcultural media and fans of the Korean Wave in the United States. Overall, the findings of this dissertation suggest that the complex layers of hybridity embedded in Korean popular culture creates complicated webs of transculturality, such as alternative forms of gender representation, cute culture, and honorific culture. When popular culture is circulated transnationally, the local context of its origin is often erased and instead it is projected through the lens of the receiving local vi context. Understanding transcultural media texts—K-pop’s appropriation of Hip Hop—as well as the perception of ethnicity surrounding the practice is bound to have differences and difficulties based on varying degrees of social and historical contexts. Cultural appropriation can enhance diversity and multiculturalism, however, one should be sensitive to a culture that has a history of being colonized or oppressed. I suggest a mutual understanding of each other’s culture and history in order to appreciate and respect the Otherness of each culture as well as subcultures. Global social media, as a main conduit to interact with foreign cultures, facilitates the spread and popularity of Korean popular culture, yet simultaneously creates cross- cultural misunderstanding and disjunctures. The Korean Wave exemplifies strategically well-balanced cultural hybridity that arouses a certain feeling of affinity—what I call emotional proximity. Korean popular culture evokes continuous negotiations of identities and generates nonthreatening wholesome content that comfortably appeals to American fans with varying degrees of ethnic, racial, social, and cultural backgrounds. The notion of woori-ness (we-ness in English)—collective unity and solidarity—embedded in Korean popular culture and its fandom culture works as one of the multifaceted soft power in the eyes of U.S. fans that leads to an alternative post-Western soft power. This study contends that it is not the so-called hybridized Korean popular culture per se that makes it transcultural—and global to some extent—but the often under-recognized vital agents in the global sphere: the regions of fans. vii Table of Contents List of Tables ...........................................................................................................x List of Figures ........................................................................................................ xi Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Literature Review ...................................................................................7 1. The Korean Wave in Globalization ............................................................7 1.1. Cultural Industry in Korea ..............................................................7 1.2. Media Culture from Transnational to Transcultural .....................14 1.3. Hybridity .......................................................................................22 2. Soft Power and Transnational Media Culture ...........................................25 2.1. Multifaceted Soft Power of the Korean Wave ..............................25 2.2. Emotional Proximity .....................................................................29 3. Audiences and Fans of Transcultural Media ............................................32 3.1. Fandom Studies .............................................................................32 3.2. Identity and Cultural Capital .........................................................40 3.3. Fans of the Korean Wave in the United States ...........................41 3.4. The Need for a Local, Ethnographic Perspective and Method .....43 Chapter 3: Methodology ........................................................................................50 1. Reversed Media Ethnography ...................................................................50 2. Participants and Informants ......................................................................53 Chapter 4: Findings ................................................................................................63 1. Introduction to Main Themes ....................................................................63 2. Hybridity of Transcultural Korean Popular Culture .................................64 2.1. Similar yet Different .....................................................................64 2.2. Gender Representation ..................................................................78 2.3. Cultural Appropriation ..................................................................89 2.4. Global Social Media ...................................................................100 3. Emotional Proximity in Transcultural Korean Popular Cultrue .............107 viii 4. Soft Power of Transcultural Korean Popular Culture .............................118 4.1. Woori-ness as Alternative Post-Western Soft Power..................118 4.2. Woori-ness in Transcultural Fandoms ........................................128 5. Transcultural Legions of the Korean Wave in the Global Sphere ..........134 5.1. Transcultural Fans' Yearning for Cultural Capital and Validity .134 5.2. Ecology of Transcultural Korean Popular Culture and Fans ......139 Chapter 5: Conclusion..........................................................................................152 1. Brief Background and Purpose of the Study...........................................152 2. Summary of Key Findings ......................................................................155 2.1. Korean Forms of Hybridity .........................................................155 2.2. Mutual Understanding in Cultural Appropriation.......................158 2.3. Emotional Proximity and Korean Wave .....................................161 2.4. Woori-ness and Korean Soft Power ............................................163 2.5. Ecology of Korean Wave: Cultural Capital and Multiculturalism ........................................................................165 3. Theoretical and Methodological Contributions ......................................169 4. Limitations ..............................................................................................173 5. Final Remarks .........................................................................................176 References ............................................................................................................179 Vita ...................................................................................................................192 ix List of Tables Table 1: Two Major Time Periods of the Korean Wave ...................................9 Table 2: Major Informants ..............................................................................55