@article{MB2E4F865,
title = "Korea vs. K-dramaland: The Culturalization of K-Dramas by International Fans",
journal = "Academia Koreana",
year = "2013",
issn = "1520-7412",
doi = "10.18399/acta.2013.16.2.004",
author = "Marion Schulze",
keywords = "Korean television dramas, international fandom, culture making, virtual ethnography",
abstract = "South Korean television dramas, K-Dramas, initiated the Korean Wave, Hallyu, in the late 1990s. Nowadays, a global viewership gathers online to stream K-Dramas live, watch them with subtitles, and discuss them on specialized blogs and message boards. However, most research still concentrates on East Asia as the main realm of K-Dramas’ diffusion, and online communities that watch K-Dramas on the Internet have rarely been considered. Furthermore, most researchers analyze K-Dramas as products inscribed by “Korean culture” or “society,” an approach that relies on an under-standing of “cultures” and “societies” as discrete, homogenous, locally bounded entities.
Expanding upon the nascent online audience research on K-Dramas, I propose in this article a shift of perspective by focusing on how international fans themselves account for K-Dramas (or elements thereof) as socially and culturally “Korean” or operate a rupture with such a culturalist viewpoint."
}