Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 2018. xi, 238 pp. (Tables, B&W photos.) US$42.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-5017-3071-9.
Starting in the 1990s, the Korean Wave (Hallyu) began to diversify into a broader range of areas beyond K-dramas. To date, theoreticians riding the Korean Wave in several fields have studied this phenomenon from a number of aspects, including K-food, fashion, cosmetics, plastic surgery, and tourism, in addition to popular culture. Pop City has added one more significant area to this burgeoning field of Hallyu studies, namely, “place-selling.” By analyzing the ways in which Korean cities have aggressively used K-drama and K-pop to develop their municipal strategies, Pop City confronts the crucial relationship between Hallyu and urban planning. There is nothing original about pointing out that several Korean cities support the production of television programs to attract visitors and boost their image. What is unique about this book is that it offers a serious academic discourse on this topic by historicizing, documenting, and visualizing the increasing role of Hallyu in attracting municipal sponsorship. It does not simply outline the mutual benefits of the symbiotic relationship of popular culture and municipalities, but critically articulates the commodification of urban space and the hyper-commercialization of Hallyu.
Pop City divides its material into two major themes, which work very well as a whole. The introduction outlines the structure of the book and discusses how Hallyu helps sell places. It clearly discusses the contributions of the book and articulates several key concepts, such as speculative venture and unevenness, which make the structure easy to follow and readable. Part 1, “The Speculative Production of Dramas and Drama Sites,” delves into the ways in which K-drama has become one of the major cultural products for the selling of place by Korean cities. This part includes two chapters that investigate the nexus of K-drama and regional cities. Based on an ethnography of the Korean drama industry, chapter 2 discusses how K-dramas are produced, covering funding channels, sponsorship practices, and the ways the dramas cater to their export markets. Chapter 3 deciphers the process by which local cities became one of the major sponsors of drama production. It examines how urban spaces are inserted into dramas in a manner similar to product placement and how drama-driven tourists reshape the meanings of cities.
Part 2, “The Affective Consumption of K-pop Idols and Places,” contains three chapters analyzing the reasons K-pop has been a popular means of promotion for two major Seoul areas. Chapter 3 investigates the production and consumption of K-pop idols by discussing the development of the K-pop music industry relative to the J-pop music industry. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss cases of place-branding associated with K-pop, emphasizing two main areas in Seoul: Gangnam in chapter 4 and Myeong-dong in chapter 5—the two most affluent and symbolic districts for both urban development and Hallyu. After historicizing the development of these two districts, each chapter contributes to the discourse of the relationship between state power, speculative capital movement, special polarization, and consumerist urban culture.
While there are several significant strengths of this book, it especially develops three major areas: the historicization of urban development and growth of Hallyu; the extension of Hallyu discourse by connecting it with urban placing; and the convergence of diverse perspectives without losing their respective original strengths. To begin with, an obvious asset of this book is its analysis of the historical background of urban development and Hallyu, as it aptly connects these two seemingly distinct areas.
The book’s focal point is not cheerleading the new marketing opportunity for cities, of course, but critically and culturally analyzing several issues embedded in that process. By utilizing the speculative nature of both urban placing and popular culture in conjunction with emotional geography, this book provides readers with new perspectives on Hallyu studies.
Interestingly, this study converges diverse perspectives in debating the socioeconomic and historical contexts surrounding the cultural industries and Korean cities, something which is unprecedented. The book’s most obvious contribution is its study of the nexus of popular culture studies and urban studies, as its title Pop City implies. The author not only aptly balances her discourses on these two areas, but also clearly unites them, thus successfully advancing into new territory that scholars in media studies, Korean studies, urban studies, sociology, cultural studies, and anthropology must ponder. Also significant is the connection the book makes between critical political economy and cultural studies. This book analyzes the power relations between the state, including municipal governments, cultural industries, and fans as tourists, and critically debates the capitalization and commodification of Hallyu, cultural producers and performers, urban space, and fans. It is not isolated from ethnography, either physically or virtually. In so doing, this book shows the significance of the convergence of these two approaches of critical political economy and cultural studies. The critical juncture of K-drama and local cities and another nexus of K-pop and Seoul are also well articulated.
Despite these advantages, there are also a handful of areas the book could have developed further. First, there is a lack of rationalization in the book’s historicization of Hallyu. The book divides Hallyu into two periods: the early stage (until 2010), when the phenomenon was driven mainly by K-dramas, and the new Korean wave era emphasizing the global emergence of K-pop starting in 2011. As the book selects only these two major Hallyu areas, the exclusion of other cultural elements is understandable. However, Hallyu needs to be understood based on a more comprehensive approach, including cultural policy, which has developed amidst the negotiation with developmentalism and neoliberalism. Acknowledging these elements and developing some discussions of them would have made this book more valuable. Second, while the book eloquently utilizes key authorities in several fields, it lacks in its engagement of critical media studies literature. The study duly cites several authorities; however, it would have enhanced the overall quality of the discussion if it had utilized several key theoreticians regarding speculation, commodification, commercialization, and fan labor.
Overall, the investigations in this book are very compelling, innovative, and well-designed and with ample supporting evidence, and the chapters are both fun to read and very informative. This book is highly recommended to a wide range of readers with an interest in popular culture, urban planning, anthropology, cultural industries, and sociology in tandem with Hallyu.
Dal Yong Jin
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada