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ISSN : 0023-3900

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Vol.53 No.4
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Envisaging the Sociocultural Dynamics of K-pop: Time/Space Hybridity, Red Queen's Race, and Cosmopolitan Striving

Korea Journal / Korea Journal, (P)0023-3900; (E)2733-9343
2013, v.53 no.4, pp.83-106
https://doi.org/10.25024/kj.2013.53.4.83


& (2013). Envisaging the Sociocultural Dynamics of K-pop: Time/Space Hybridity, Red Queen's Race, and Cosmopolitan Striving. Korea Journal, 53(4), 83-106, https://doi.org/10.25024/kj.2013.53.4.83
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Abstract

The success of K-pop’s global drive has provoked scholarly interests from various perspectives and disciplines. The multidisciplinary interest in K-pop reflects the wealth of K-pop success factors that are either exogenous (i.e., emphasizing global factors) or endogenous (i.e., highlighting Korean factors). This article focuses on the endogenous factors of K-pop’s success, given the fact that the majority of the extant studies on K-pop analyze the impact of global factors on K-pop’s popularity in different regions of the world. Thus, this study seeks to find if non-stereotypical Korean particularities that cannot be accounted for by exogenous explanations exist within the K-pop industry. We posit that the Korean peculiarities in the K-pop industry can be traced back to time/space hybridity, the “red queen’s race,” and cosmopolitan striving. This article finds that these three specific features within modern Korean culture explain why K-pop songs are still different from American or European pop music, despite their similarities due to the globalization of pop music. The differences between K-pop music and their counterparts in America and Europe are: the contemporaneity of the uncontemporary, the synchronized dancing to melodic music (vis-à-vis beat music), and the multi-top dancing formation. We conclude that the aforementioned Korean factors are responsible for these musical variations in K-pop.

keywords
K-Pop, time/space hybridity, cosmopolitan striving, red queen’s race

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