Transnational Korean Television: Cultural Storytelling and Digital Audience provides previously absent analyses of Korean TV dramas' transnational influences, peculiar production features, distribution, and consumption to enrich the contextual understanding of Korean TV's transcultural mobility. Even as academic discussions about the Korean Wave have heated up, Korean television studies from transnational viewpoints often lack in-depth analysis and overlook the recently extended flow of Korean television beyond Asia. This book illustrates the ecology of Korean television along with the Korean Wave for the past two decades in order to showcase Korean TV dramas' international mobility and its constant expansion with the different Western television and their audiences. Korean TV dramas' mobility in crossing borders has been seen in both transnational and transcultural flows, and the book opens up the potential to observe the constant flow of Korean television content in new places, peoples, manners, and platforms around the world. Scholars of media studies, communication, cultural studies, and Asian studies will find this book especially useful.
Hyejung Ju is associate professor of mass communication at Claflin University.
List of Tables List of Figures Introduction Part I: Transnational Korean Television With East Asia 1. Transforming the Korean Television Industry: the Korean Wave 2. Korean TV Drama Narratives: Are Korean Dramas a Transcultural Story? 3. Korean TV Shows with East Asian Partnership Part II: Transnational Korean Television In America 4. Digital Audiences, Fans, and Fandom 5. The Power of Streaming TV: Netflix, DramaFever, and American Viewers 6. Korean Television Formats Conclusion Bibliography
Hyejung Ju offers very useful analyses of transnational influences of South Korean television dramas.... Transnational Korean Television is, basically, the first book length publication that provides outstanding explanations of the complex South Korean television in the context of the television industry of the country.... Readers should benefit from the very detailed bibliography and the useful index. Also, as a succinct book, Transnational Korean Television can easily be used as a two-term textbook for college students of all levels. * African and Asian Studies (AAS) * Much has been written and published about the presence of the Korean Wave in recent years. However, this seems to be the first book that provides outstanding explanations in the entangled national, regional, and global contexts enabling the worldwide move of South Korean television in tandem with the Korean television industry and programs, global media transformation, digital impacts to Korean TV production and distribution, and burgeoning transnational Korean TV viewers. Rich economic, cultural, and policy data; popular TV cases; fan culture; and organic structures of each chapter are delightful to read-I highly recommend. -- Esther Lee, California State University, San Bernardino Hyejung Ju has written a compelling book that fills a gap in our understanding of transnational media studies. Ju explains how and why South Korean television dramas appeal to both Eastern and Western audiences. This is a groundbreaking work that should receive the attention of media scholars and fans of Korean drama alike. -- Todd L. Sandel, University of Macau
