Pop City : Korean Popular Culture and the Selling of Place / Youjeong Oh.

9781501730733

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

©2018

1 online resource (252 p.) : 4 b&w halftones

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Pop City examines the use of Korean television dramas and K-Pop music to promote urban and rural places in South Korea. Building on the phenomenon of Korean pop culture, Youjeong Oh argues that the marketing of K-Pop and Korean dramatic television mediates two separate domains: political decentralization and the globalization of Korean popular culture. The local election system introduced in the mid 90s has stimulated strong desires among city mayors and county and district governors to develop and promote their areas. Riding on the Korean Wave-the overseas popularity of Korean entertainment, also called Hallyu-Korean cities have actively used K-dramas and K-Pop idols in advertisements designed to attract foreign tourists to their regions. Hallyu, meanwhile, has turned the Korean entertainment industry into a speculative field into which numerous players venture by attracting cities as sponsors.By analyzing the process of culture-featured place marketing, Pop City shows that urban spaces are produced and sold just like TV dramas and pop idols by promoting spectacular images rather than substantial physical and cultural qualities. Popular culture and associated urban promotion also uses the emotional engagement of its users in advertising urban space, just as pop culture draws on fans' and audiences' affective commitments to sell its products. Oh demonstrate how the speculative, image-based, and consumer-exploitive nature of popular culture shapes the commodification of urban space and ultimately demonstrates that pop culture and mediated place promotion means capital dominates urban space in sophisticated and fetishized ways.

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June 09, 2022