The Glocal Culture and the Korean Wave

This paper regards the Korean Wave as an exemplary glocal culture and discusses the concept of glocal culture. The Korean Wave refers to the popularity of Korean popular culture, entertainment and daily culture across Asia and other parts of the world. Glocal culture is developed through the interrelation between global and local contexts and is transnationally consumed. By considering the Korean Wave as an exemplary glocal culture, the paper discusses the glocalization of Korean popular cultural contents as the result of local socio-cultural characteristics of Korea, hybridization of global and local features, and transnational consumption of contents. The glocalizing dynamics of the Korean Wave can be seen in the process of consumption and creation of new pop culture in the countries receiving the Korean Wave. People in different countries received the Korean Wave depending on political, economic, socio-cultural factors in each country. The diverse responses to the Korean Wave in each country are related to individual interactions to values and experiences in plural time periods. For example, the meaning of consuming Korean Wave products would be either advanced or low culture through interacting with a global cultural form. The local countries consuming the Korean Wave respond to globalization by creating new forms and styles of glocal cultures through local re-interpretations of the Korean Wave. In addition, the paper introduces the activities of the local K-pop fans as evidences of cultural communities. With the cases of glocalization of the Korean Wave, this study intends to consider the Korean Wave as a way to build cultural relationship between Korea and the Korean Wave receivers. It is an important factor for the creation of transnational cultural communities where people among different countries share cultural universals, identities and tastes based on the Korean Wave, and further develop two-way communication, mutual understanding and cooperation.