The Effect of Globalization on Korean Pop Music - Research Paper Example

Work III RESEARCH PROPOSAL AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: Research Question: In modern world nothing is confined to any particular country or nationality. Globalization is an option by which every country has able to globalize their product, innovations as well as culture. A detailed research about the effect of globalization on culture and with the specific focus on Korean Pop (Korean wave) will help us to understand the effect of globalization of cultural perspective. The research question for this topic is “what are the effects of globalization on Korean pop music and this is helping the Korean wave to grow in terms of style, essence, and uniqueness or not”. Importance of the paper and its objective: This research will help the people to understand what the effect of globalization of different culture is and how it helps the Korean Pop culture to spread all across the globe. Apart from that this research paper will also help us to discuss the effect of globalization on the Korean Pop culture and also how it influences other music types across the globe. With the help of this research paper we can analyze the effect of globalization in a particular field like culture and music. Being a culturally rich country, the main aim of Korea is to spread their culture all across the globe. These reviews will help us analyze different positive and negative effects of globalization, how Korean wave culture uses this concept of globalization in their advantage to promote their culture. Thesis of the Paper: The working thesis of this paper will be “globalization is just a supporting tool not the essential one to promote the Korean Pop culture as this culture have the essence in it to get noticed by the world”. The answer of the research questions will be based on the literature review, primary research. Through literature review we will discuss about different author’s and scholars viewpoint about how the globalization plays a role in cultural mix and match across the globe and how it plays a role in the journey of Korean pop music. The primary research will help us to get the present conception about the effects of globalization on the Korean culture in terms of both positive and negative, along with the opinion of common man regarding how the globalization helps in popularity of Korean pop or Korean wave. Outline of the Paper: While answering this paper we will take a primary research based approach with supporting the view of the positive impact of globalization based on different author’s viewpoints. The primary research will be based on 10 questions, out of which 8 will be close ended questions and rest 2 open ended. The answers of the open ended questions will be represented by graphs and pie chart, whereas we will co-relate common people’s view with that of the authors/scholars and able to justify the positive impact of globalization on Korean Pop culture. The counterarguments with this research will be, whether the perspective or viewpoint of the scholars/authors of the past really represent the fact what people of today feels and whether those concepts related to the globalization of culture really Co relates to the popularity of the Korean Pop music or not. Another counterargument may come from the open ended questions, such as whether the answers given by the participants are true enough or not and whether those open ended questions are enough to understand their point of view or not. Annotated Bibliography: 1. Hooper Paul, Understanding Cultural Globalization, Polity, 2007, Web. In exploring the cultural dynamics of globalization, the book investigates the interrelationship between globalization and culture. This will help us in getting an overall perspective of how globalization have its role to play in the cultural aspects and what are the impacts of the same. 2. Lewis, B . James, Sesay, Amadu, Korea and Globalization: Politics, Economics and Culture, Routledge, 2013, Print. This book discusses about the effect of globalization on Korean culture especially on Korean pop music. From this book we will get a clear view of how Korean Pop culture benefited by the globalization, hoe the process was initiated and what benefit the Korean pop gain due to this globalization. 3. Chua, H. Beng, Lwabuchi Koichi, East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave, Hong kong University press, 2008, Print. This book gives us an in depth analysis of the Korean Pop culture. The history of it and how with the help of globalization it able to expand its presence all around the world, what positive does the dance style gain from this and what are the future trend of the same. 4. Sung Y. Sang, Globalization and the Regional Flow of Popular Music: The Role of the Korean Wave (Hanliu) in the Construction of Taiwanese Identities and Asian Values, ProQuest, 2008, Print This book helps us in -musicological learning about the Hanliu phenomenon in Taiwan. It is more popular as "Korean Wave”. This book refers to the rather unexpected and recent distribution of Korean popular culture throughout Asia. This book also pointed out the facts related to the role played by the Korean culture in the Asia’s over all cultural development, how it develops a unique identity in Asia as well as in the world. 5. Choi, J. Yum, The Globalization of K-Pop: Is K-Pop Losing its Korean-ness?, Situation (5), 2011. In this research paper Yum discussed about the effect of globalization on Korean Pop as well as Korean wave. With the continuously developing technology now the culture of one country gets motivated from another , in this paper he discussed that thing only in respect to K pop. 6. Hyejung, J. The Nature of Nationalism in the “Korean Wave”: A Framing Analysis of News Coverage about Korean Pop Culture. Conference Papers -- National Communication Association, 2007, Print In This paper the discussion is all about how the Korean government policy help to develop the culture of K pop as well as Korean wave. The paper also emphasizes how it helps to change the impression of the country as a whole. 7. 7. Roots of K Pop, The Korean Times, 2013, web, retrieved on 16.11.2013 from http://www.koreatimesus.com/?p=1425 This news article is all about the history and development of Korean Pop culture. The article discussed about the history of the Korean Pop, how it changed with the globalization, what are its impact and also enlightened us with some of the key artists associated with this culture who help to change this K pop with time. 8. Coltman, M. M. Tourism marketing . New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989, Print This paper helps us to understand how the Korean wave , change over the time with globalization. How it cope up with the effect of other popular culture across the globe and how the Korean wave maintain its uniqueness despite the continuous change in the mindset of the people. WORK IV Korean Wave: Change In Korean Culture and the Globalization and its effect Introduction: Cultural globalization has reached a new level with the modernization of the world. All across the globe, every different type of culture now gets motivated from one another and also getting richer day by day with the help of cultural understanding between the countries. According to Hopper (2007), from the type of origin the cultural globalization has gone through different phases. According to his analysis, the cultural globalization can be categorized into three different phases, one is pre-modern (prior to 1500), then the modern phase (1500-1945), and finally the contemporary phase (1945 onwards). According to his review, following points are key to analyze the effect of globalization in the cultural world, these are human migration, emergence of world religions, early imperial systems and development of trade networks. Modern phase of cultural globalization includes, European imperialism, constantly changing world economy, spread of modernity, spread of modernity, the rise and development of the new nation-state and industrialization. In the present era, globalization of the culture across the globe is nothing new. The only thing according to him is now associated with the cultural globalization is the development of new generation and their willingness to adopt a new culture.( 13-30). The continuously growing popularity of Korean stuffing in Asia known as Hanryu (Korean Wave), which was to a certain extent supported by Korean cultural policy. The Korean cultural policy has many implications with regard to cultural policy in marginal countries under globalization and the open-door against cultural variety debate. This thesis assesses how current cultural opening under globalization in Korea has exaggerated Koreas cultural industries both quantitatively in terms of economic performance and qualitatively in terms of cultural content, identity and diversity. All these questions are examined in the light of the changing relationship between two important factors, the cultural industries and cultural policy in Korea which was in place since the end of the 1990s. According to this analysis, Hanryu was not just as a fact in its own right, but it has also kept an eye on the secondary impact of this phenomenon on perceptions of culture and identity. The thesis considers Hanryu in a parameter of its cultural influence on adjacent countries apparent through tourism and that help to develop a keen interest in Korean language and culture.. From the mid 1990s, the Korean cultural industries have been altered dramatically. Cultural policy also has an immense role to play and it also helps to strengthen the competitiveness of Koreas cultural industries. At the same time it also considers some of the limits and criticisms of Hanryu, that includes the potential loss of cultural diversity and also most importantly an anti- Korean reaction in some other Asian countries. “The Korean cultural industries have benefited from imitating the Hollywood system and developing a distinctive hybrid cultural content and business model. This has made possible an alternative approach to policy and management which lies between two extremes of protectionism and free market ideology.”(Young, 2007, Abstract). Research Question: In this paper main focus is on the effect of globalization on Korean wave specially on Korean pop culture. The analysis is based on the different authors point of view, what they feel about Koren wave and Korean pop culture, how it have its impact on Asia as well as the rest of the world. The paper also represents the impact of popularity of Korean wave and Korean pop, as how it helped the country to change its impression in front of the rest of the world. The research question for this paper is “what are the effects of globalization on Korean pop music and this is helping the Korean wave to grow in terms of style, essence, and uniqueness or not” Globalization of Korean Wave: Political and Economical Factors: Cultural development of any country always dependent on the government policy related to the cultural development and social development. Culture of any particular country always dependent on the social structure and the moral as well as social values of the country. According to Lewis and Sesay (2013), Politics and economy in Korea also played major role in the globalization of Koran wave. The liberalization of the Korean economy, politics mainly the policy adopted by the Korean government to support their culture helps immensely to popularize the Korean wave all across the globe. According to them, the value orientation of the Korean society has a major role to play also. The value orientation based on four characteristics; People, culture, community and values. All these parameters according to them are the key behind tasks of the Korean wave. ( Lewis and Sesay, 2013).Chua & Lwabuchi (2008), in their analysis pointed out that since 1980, The pressure of US has been immense on Korea to open their market for globalization. According to them, the global economic condition influenced the decision of the Koren government to open their media and cultural section to the world to promote those among others. This opening up by the media and cultural sector also was pushed by the common people of the country who were bored of long running domestic control over the media. By the early 2006, all the Korean popular cultural production was popular all across the Asia as well as globally. According to their point of view, the everydayness that was present in the Korean pop was quite clear by the fact that it was a common feature of the Korean song.( 15-16). According to Kim (2005), in the Korean news coverage, the Korean wave was naturally promoted in a positive light to promote more national pride, honor, and triumph. In his word, “The cultural phenomenon known as helium or the Korean wave left an indelible mark throughout Asia in 2004, fanning optimism about the country›s potential as a cultural powerhouse”. He also added that “It all started with pop music and soap operas, but the Korean Wave did not stop at that point only. He also added that, the popularity of Korean pop culture reached new heights during 2004, and the main reason behind this popularity was the overwhelming success of the television drama Korea Herald in Asia. During the end of that year , the word ‘hallyu’ (Korean Wave), was started to relate to the popularity of Korean pop culture abroad, and thus became a household word,” (Kim, 2005). Undoubtedly, the Korean news frame singles out the success of the Korean wave in a fully emotional way compared to other news coverage. Effect of Korean Wave: Jang and Paik (2012) examine the Korean Wave and its influence on the world. The researchers have examined the association between Korean Wave and the political and social changes across the world including East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The Korean Wave includes television dramas, movies, dance, video game, food, fashion, tourism and language apart form the main element of the present discussion, i.e. Korean Pop. Int. his context another quest may occur, “Does the Korean Wave affect the political position den diplomatic leverage of Korea in any meaningful way?” the researchers conclude that the Wave has the potential to promote Korea’s cultural diplomacy incorporating therefore a soft power approach along the argument that the value of the world changes with cultural influences such as music. The Korean Wave helped to rebuild the relationship between Taiwan and South Korea after the bitterness. This also led to the formation of the new image of South Korea. The Wave also epitomizes the cross-cultural ties. It brought changes in the ways of thinking of the Malaysians who began to prefer Korean food and goods. Thus the Korean Wave has the potential to promote cultural and public diplomacy and changes in preferences of other nations. However there should be no interference of the Korean Government in promoting the Wave. Rather the cultural influences should be allowed to spread naturally. The researchers believe “the culture technology is more subtle and complicated, as it primarily works with invisible assets and enigmatic human resources and heir potential growth potential” (201). The effect of Korean Wave also immense on the development of national image of the country,. This can finally be considered as the country reinventing or reestablishing their national image through a process called nation branding, which they achieve with the help of a cultural phenomenon known as Korean wave. According to Coltman (1989), “a field of theory and practice which aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of countries” (17). Coltman in his book also mentioned that states, “Nation branding applies approaches from commercial brand- management practice to countries in an effort to build, change or protect their international reputations. It is based on the observation that brand images of countries are just as important to their success in the global marketplace as those of products and services.” Countries all across the globe are constantly developing and rebuilding their own image and also their national identities as they compete with neighboring country for three most common things , the power, influence and prestige.(20) The effect of the Korean wave on the Korean culture and Korea’s overall image was immense. The plea of Korean pop culture to Asians is particularly meaningful for the Korean government as due to the conservative approach of the government country’s national image was not always been positive among the neighboring countries in the Asia as well as across the globe. According to the article published in the Korea Herald, written by Cho (2004), the power of any nation and its culture was in its attractiveness as well as how much the particular culture was able to motivate or encourage the culture of the surrounding nations. Before the development or, popularity of the Korean wave all across the globe, the image of the Koran government was very low, in terms of appeal, image of domestic violence, and other political problems were more common picture that world used to relate to the Korea. According to Cho, after the government of Korea felt the positive result of this cultural wave or better to say Korean Wave, They have decided to designate Korea Herald which referred to the technology that helped developing the culture of the country. This transformation was accompanied with cultural heritage and mass media- mediated culture, which helped to develop unique commodities—as one of the six key technologies that should drive Korean economy Korean Pop: A key part of Korean Wave: Development modern K-pop started in 1926 with “Hymn of Death,” sung by Yoon Sim-duk. It was the title song of her first album released in August in the same year. This is also identified as the first Korean pop song released in Japan. It was later discussed by the historians that the song was based on the true love story of Yoon herself. At the beginning of K-pop, downhearted songs conquered the local music scene, which was mainly due to result of Japan’s colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula. .(The Korean times, 2013) Changes in K Pop: From the very beginning, The Korean pop music was associated with humbly dressed musicians. But this concept faced a major challenge in 1960s.The Change was initiated by Yoon Bok-hee in 1967 followed by Han Dae-soo, a hippie-inspired rocker with long hair from the U.S., who made his debut in 1974. Huge disparagement fell on them from all parts of Korea for challenging musical conventionality. But they endured, making themselves an icon of liberation. .(The Korean times, 2013) Renaissance of K-pop: It’s not an overstatement to say that K-pop showed spectacular growth during 1990s. People’s spending on music skyrocketed was increased drastically on the back of economic development, which develop the ground to bring young and talented singer into the market like Kim Gun-mo, Shin Seung-hun and Seo Tai-ji. From that point onwards K-pop started going global with the help of systematically trained idol stars. The major contribution to K-pop globalization, goes down to Psy who took the global music scene by storm in 2012 with “Gangnam Style,” a YouTube hit song that has drawn a whopping 1.8 billion viewers globally.(The Korean times, 2013) The popularity of Korean Pop is mainly due to three entertainment companies – SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment and JYP Entertainment. Out of these SM is the oldest company in the Korean music market. This led to the development of first generation K-Pop boy and girl bands which includes the H.O.T., Shinhwa, and SES. Teenage idols, Super Junior, SHINee and Girls’ Generation owe to this company. YG produces the hip hop and electronic sounds. All these groups comprise of foreing singers mainly Western talents for all kinds of Korean music. They are constantly trying to meet the demand for Korean pop around the world. However, as per researcher Choi (2011) the three main girl groups like SM’s Girls’ Generation, YG’s 2NEI and JYPE’s Wonder Girls point out towards one question – whether the Korean element in K-Pop is being undervalued owing to the global undertones. Incorporating the foreign element in terms of singers might either increase the appeal of the Koren Pop or change the K-Pop completely. Though the idea is to increase the appeal to the global audience and suiting environs taste, yet the Korean flavor, if lost, might lead to people losing interest. The idea might be to just produce good Pop music instead of using the K-factor. However hopes still remain as the recent coverage of K-Pop boy and girl bands in areas outside the existing K-Pop markets bear positive notes. High quality content is important along with production quality in order to popularize K-Pop on a global level (Choi, 2011, 5-7) All these developments both in the cultural field as well as with the change in the government policy Korea become a cultural powerhouse in Asia. In relation to the Korean wave, culture was the most the most essential element in creating a national brand image. Enhancement of national image, all the way through culture ultimately has a positive impact on other factors that were associated in order to make up a national image in front of the rest of the world. Different factors such as political, social and economic factors all was rebuilt around the popularity of the Korean wave. The Korean wave basically improved as well as changed the nation’s cultural image that had a radiant effect which in a way was helpful to change people’s perception about Korea’s political, economic and social images which for the world since then was nothing but a country which love to impose restriction on their people in every aspect. Conclusion: From the above analysis we may conclude that Korean wave is a key Korean culture which with the effect of globalization changed over the time. Globalization is not only associated with the reformation of the country’s economy but also associated also has its effect on the culture as well.The Korean pop, at the beginning was solely influenced by the local culture, music was based on local tradition. But as the time moves on globalization started to have its effect on it. The modern technology, music pattern, singing style all started to have its effect on K pop. Some people feel that globalization is slowly destroying the originality of the Korean pop, but others believe that it is helping Korea to built a new impression in front of the world By the time moves on both Korean wave as well as Korean pop changed due to globalization and although many people did not take this change very easily but still the changes make the Korean pop more popular across the globe. References 1. Choi, J. Yum, The Globalization of K-Pop: Is K-Pop Losing its Korean-ness?, Situation (5), 2011, Web, retrieved on 16.11.2013 from http://web.yonsei.ac.kr/bk21/situations5/Yunjung_Choi.pdf 2. Chua, H. Beng, Lwabuchi Koichi, East Asian Pop Culture: Analyzing the Korean Wave, Hong Kong University press, 2008, Print. 3. Coltman, M. M. Tourism marketing . New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989, Print 4. Hooper Paul, Understanding Cultural Globalization, Polity, 2007, Web 5. Hyejung, J. The Nature of Nationalism in the “Korean Wave”: A Framing Analysis of News Coverage about Korean Pop Culture. Conference Papers -- National Communication Association, 2007, Print 6. Kim, H., Korean culture is key to promoting positive national image. The Korea Her­ald.2010, Web, Retrieved on 16.11.2013, from http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20051123 7. Lewis, B . James, Sesay, Amadu, Korea and Globalization: Politics, Economics and Culture, Routledge, 2013, Print 8. Roots of K Pop, The Korean Times, 2013, web, retrieved on 16.11.2013 from http://www.koreatimesus.com/?p=1425 9. Sung Y. Sang, Globalization and the Regional Flow of Popular Music: The Role of the Korean Wave (Hanliu) in the Construction of Taiwanese Identities and Asian Values, ProQuest, 2008, Print 10. Young J Kim, Rethinking media flow under globalization: rising Korean wave and Korean TV and film policy since 1980s, University of Warwick, 2005, Web, retrieved on 16.11.2013 from http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2232129~S15 Read More