Discussion 3B: How much power and impact do fans or consumers really have in K-pop industries?10/16/2018 As K-pop nowadays continue to receive worldwide recognition from an increased number and also a wide variety of fans overseas, I believe that the power or the impact of K-pop fans has greatly contributed to the global success of K-pop. Particularly, I will discuss how their power has influenced in promoting K-pop to the world stage and in fostering Korean cultural economy through the development of social network platforms. In the late 1900s, the time of Teletubbies Generation, placed an emphasis on the patterns of consuming through viewing and reacting to K-pop content from the screen (Kim 2018: 15). Moreover, large-scale networks’ have an entire control over what should be shown on TV which gives viewers very little control over their TV consumption patterns (Kim 2018: 26). Today where we have a greater access to social network systems, fans "as not only consumers but also creators and distributors of cultural content which gains radically greater access to and agency over their stars" (Shin 2015: 142). Fans create their own media content based on the primary media content of K-pop from entertainment companies. Representative examples include reaction videos of official music videos and dance or singing covers. Such media creation by fans enables greater circulation of K-pop content in social network platforms along with an active communication between commentators of each media content. This active conversation of viewers also keeps K-pop to be viral. The entertainment companies and Korean TV shows realize the significance of fan involvement in global success of K-pop that it encourages more fans to participate and become more engaged in K-pop contents. For example, the reality talent competition TV show called Produce 101 created by CJ E&M debuts a K-pop idol group of top 11 members out of a total 101 members based on their popularity voted by fans. The formation of group was solely based on the audience which gives fans a full control over idol production. Moreover, mobile applications such as V-app which provides livestream videos from K-pop performers to directly communicate with fans. It offers multiple language subtitles with international accessibility for worldwide audience. In conclusion, I claim that fans have gained much more powerful control over K-pop which was supported by development of social networking technologies. They enabled promoting K-pop through their own creation of media content and direct communication between fans and K-pop performers which eventually has influenced in benefitting the cultural economy of South Korea. ReferenceKim, Sukyoung. K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2018. Shin, Haerin. "The Dynamics of K-pop Spectatorship." In K-pop: The International Rise of the Korean Music Industry, edited by JeongBong Choi and Roald Maliangkay. 133-145. New York: Routledge, 2015. AuthorChaeree An
13 Comments
Aneet
10/16/2018 02:17:16 pm
I agree with everything you wrote! In addition, fans of particular K-pop artists also create fan artwork, edits, and artist introduction videos on their social media channels and platforms, thus allowing non-fans to learn more about the K-pop artist and potentially become a fan themselves. At the very least, these fan-made contents spread awareness about the existence of the K-pop artist, which has an impact on the artist’s popularity and in turn, more awareness about the K-pop community itself.
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Kristy Lin
10/17/2018 06:11:26 pm
I also found that its kind of interesting to look at the specific types of content fans are creating about their favourite idols and general K-pop trends. For example, a lot of people film make-up and outfit videos influenced and inspired by K-pop idols and songs. You could say that this is a way to circulate information about K-pop groups, but in the context of Korean music as a whole, this is also a way to continue and enforce the characteristics that make K-pop unique. There are videos made about "American makeup" vs "Korean makeup", and I always thought that it was intriguing how Korean styles of makeup are almost always based off of K-pop looks.
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Kristy Lin
10/17/2018 06:26:28 pm
I wanted to add that I think the Korean media industry as a whole is also very much influenced and motivated by audience participations. In fact, I actually think consumers as a whole drive the media entertainment industry worldwide. The thing about social media and media landscapes is that a lot of the time they are working simultaneously with society and also a step ahead of society to lead our social norms and thinking. In a way, audience participation holds the key to successful engagement, and engagement plays a big role in the producer and consumer relationships. What big media industries want is to get the audience's attention, and both good and bad attention is still attention. So by incorporating audience engagement in shows with voting systems, like Produce 101, it is a win win situation for both the consumer and producer. The viewers get to have a say in what happens, and feel like they contributed to the program, thus creating a meaningful connection to the media content. While at the same time, companies have less work to do because they just follow the trends and wants of the audiences. At the end of the day, fans and consumers play a huge role in media and entertainment industries because without the fans, there wouldn't even be anything. I think that this is also why a lot of the idols will say something along the lines of "we would be nothing without you", because honestly without fans and consumers, there wouldn't be a market for music industries.
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CedarBough Saeji
10/17/2018 06:30:46 pm
Chaeree,
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Clara
10/17/2018 07:46:22 pm
I mean the success of BTS is already a huge example of how powerful fans are now in the K-Pop industry. Without the support and rallying efforts the Army, BTS would not have broken out into the North American scene as well as they did after winning the American Music Awards for social influence.
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Clara Ng
10/17/2018 08:45:26 pm
The importance of social media is amplified with the digital age. This has allowed for more people to access K-Pop more than ever, creating even larger fan bases for rising groups.
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Ariel
10/19/2018 01:29:38 pm
Fans and consumers are really the meat of the K-pop industry. If they do not exist, idols would not be where they are today. K-pop survives on the large fandoms and successes of groups is dictated by the size of fandom. Fandoms help the groups earn the awards and spread their music, and this is prominent in the case of BTS and PSY. Fan involvement gives K-pop an edge that Western artists do not bring to the table. An example of this would be Ms. Wang's presentation on Tent City of the BTS concert phenomenon. Fans also help partake in charitable contributions in light of idol's names. Fans are literally the driving force of the successes in K-pop, because without fans, the idols would not be able to financially sustain themselves.
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