Behind the K-pop Mania


Book Description

Explore the Heartbeat of a Global Phenomenon Enter a world that pulsates with rhythm, color, and unstoppable energy. "Behind the K-Pop Mania: Unveiling the Global Sensation" is your all-access pass into the heart of a culture that has conquered the globe. This book peels back the layers of a universe that, until now, has only been glimpsed from the outside. Dive into the rich history of Korean pop music, beginning with its roots and tracing its meteoric rise to global fame. You'll journey through the decades, from the formation of the earliest idol groups to the worldwide spread of Hallyu–the Korean Wave. Discover how K-Pop has evolved, adapting and innovating to become a leading force in the global music industry. Imagine understanding the inner workings of top entertainment agencies and the creation of idols who would go on to captivate millions. Discover the secrets behind the grueling path to stardom and the innovative trainee systems that have produced some of the world's biggest music sensations. From Big Bang to BTS, learn how groups are formed and what makes the dynamics within K-Pop groups so unique. But it's not just about the music. K-Pop is a visual feast, and this book delves into the aesthetics that define the genre–from fashion and choreography to the groundbreaking storytelling found in music videos. You'll see how these elements combine to create a multisensory experience that transcends language barriers, drawing fans from every corner of the globe. Join us on a voyage to understand the magnitude of K-Pop's global impact, both culturally and economically. Explore the digital fan cultures that have sprung up on a foundation of social media, supporting their idols with a passion and fervor that is unmatched. Learn about the controversies and challenges that have rocked the K-Pop world and how the industry is adapting to address these issues head-on. Looking forward, "Behind the K-Pop Mania: Unveiling the Global Sensation" casts an eye on the future of the genre, exploring emerging trends, technological innovations, and the exciting prospects for K-Pop's influence on global music culture. This book is more than an exploration; it's an invitation to experience the unstoppable force of K-Pop. Whether you're a lifelong fan or a curious newcomer, prepare to be enthralled by the stories, the struggles, and the spectacle of one of the world's most dynamic cultural exports.




K-pop Dance


Book Description

This book is about K-pop dance and the evolution and presence of its dance fandom on social media. Based on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, choreography, and participation-observation with 40 amateur and professional K-pop dancers in New York, California, and Seoul, the book traces the evolution of K-pop dance from the 1980s to the 2020s and explains its distinctive feature called ‘gestural point choreography’ – front-driven, two-dimensional, decorative and charming movements of the upper body and face – as an example of what the author theorizes as ‘social media dance.’ It also explores K-pop cover dance as a form of intercultural performance, suggesting that, by imitating and idolizing K-pop dance, fans are eventually ‘fandoming’ themselves and their bodies. Presenting an ethnographic study of K-pop dance and its fandom, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Media Studies, Korean Studies, Performance Studies, and Dance.




Identity and Pleasure


Book Description

Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture critically examines what media and screen culture reveal about the ways urban-based Indonesians attempted to redefine their identity in the first decade of this century. Through a richly nuanced analysis of expressions and representations found in screen culture (cinema, television and social media), it analyses the waves of energy and optimism, and the disillusionment, disorientation and despair, that arose in the power vacuum that followed the dramatic collapse of the militaristic New Order government. While in-depth analyses of identity and political contestation within the nation are the focus of the book, trans-national engagements and global dimensions are a significant part of the story in each chapter. The author focuses on contemporary cultural politics in Indonesia, but each chapter contextualizes current circumstances by setting them within a broader historical perspective.




K-POP Now!


Book Description

"This is the book on K-pop everybody has been waiting for.…A must-read!" --Charlotte Naudin, PR Manager, Torpedo Productions K-Pop Now! examines Korea's high-energy pop music and is written for its growing legions of fans. Pop culture expert Mark Russell features the most famous groups and singers and takes an insider's look at how they have made it to the top. In 2012, Psy's song and music video "Gangnam Style" took the world by storm. But K-Pop, the music of Psy's homeland of Korea, has been winning fans with its infectious melodies and high-energy fun since long before that. Featuring talented singers and eye-catching visuals, K-Pop is the music of the moment. Although K-Pop is a relatively new phenomenon in the West, it is rapidly gaining traction and reaching much larger audiences --thanks in large part to social media like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram -- the Girls Generation single "Gee" has almost three hundred million views! K-Pop Now! includes: Profiles of current K-Pop artists and their hits. A look at Seoul's trendiest hangout spots. Interviews with top artists like Kevin from Ze:A and Brian Joo from Fly to the Sky. A look at the K-Pop idols of tomorrow. You'll meet the biggest record producers, the hosts of the insanely popular "Eat Your Kimchi" website, and K-Pop groups like Big Bang, TVXQ, 2NE1, Girls Generation, HOT, SES, FinKL Busker Busker, and The Koxx. The book also includes a guide for fans who plan to visit Seoul to explore K-Pop up close. Join the K-Pop revolution today!




The Soft Power of the Korean Wave


Book Description

At this fascinating historical moment, this timely collection explores the new meaning of the Korean Wave and the process of media production, representation, distribution and consumption in a global context as a distinctive and complex form of soft power. Focusing on the most recent phenomenon of Korean popular culture, this book considers the Korean Wave in the global digital age and addresses the social, cultural and political implications in their complexity within the contexts of global inequalities and uneven power structures. The collection brings together internationally renowned scholars and regional specialists to examine this historically significant, visibly growing, yet under-explored current phenomenon in the global digital age. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives from media and communications, cultural studies, sociology, history and anthropology, and including a series of case studies from Asia, the USA, Europe and the Middle East, it provides an empirically rich and theoretically stimulating tour of this area of study, going beyond the standard Euro-American view of the evolving and complex dynamics of the media today. This collection is essential reading for students and scholars interested in Korean popular culture and in film, media, fandom and cultural industries more widely.




Southeast Asia between China and Japan


Book Description

Triangular relations which frame China and Japan as two sides of an isosceles triangle usually focus on the United States as the significant third side. This edited book examines another relatively underexplored set of triangular relations—those between China, Japan and Southeast Asia. The region, comprised of eleven small and medium-size states, is often considered inconsequential in the tempestuous world of international politics where political clout, economic prowess, military strength and soft power matter most. Often seen as easily dominated by extra-regional great powers, this volume reconsiders the region’s relationship with China and Japan, their two Asian neighbours to the northeast which also happen to be the world’s second and third largest economies. While China and Japan do compete for turf in Southeast Asia, states in the region do not perceive themselves as strategic pawns of these two great Asian powers but instead as proactively engaging China and Japan in the region. The country-specific case studies of this book collectively support the thesis that the Southeast Asian states actively seek to manoeuvre between China and Japan for their own advantage and at the same time grapple with developments in Northeast Asia through regional integration efforts. Through the establishment of benchmark norms and values, Southeast Asia attempts to socialise China and Japan and other external powers to the ASEAN way. Indeed, Southeast Asia as a region is now the driver of East Asian multilateralism and regionalism, and the East Asian reality is that Southeast Asia is a major political, economic and cultural player in its own right vis-à-vis the great powers.




Chinese Fans of Japanese and Korean Pop Culture


Book Description

How can Japanese popular culture gain numerous fans in China, despite pervasive anti-Japanese sentiment? How is it that there’s such a strong anti-Korean sentiment in Chinese online fan communities when the official Sino-Korean relationship is quite stable before 2016? Avid fans in China are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding to make gifts to their idols in foreign countries. Tabloid reports on Japanese and Korean celebrities have been known to trigger nationalist protests in China. So, what is the relationship between Chinese fandom of Japanese and Korean popular culture and nationalist sentiment among Chinese youth? Chen discusses how Chinese fans of Japanese and Korean popular culture have formed their own nationalistic discourse since the 1990s. She argues that, as nationalism is constructed from various entangled ideologies, narratives, myths and collective memories, popular culture simply becomes another resource for the construction of nationalism. Fans thus actively select, interpret and reproduce the content of cultural products to suit their own ends. Unlike existing works, which focus on the content of transnational cultural flows in East Asia, this book focuses on the reception and interpretation of the Chinese audience.




K-POP


Book Description

In October 2009, the Korean girl group 2NE1’s album To Anyone ranked second after Eminem’s Recovery on the Top Hip Hop Albums chart on iTunes, the largest online music vendor in the United States. At a concert hall in Los Angeles, five hundred Girls’ Generation fans wearing T-shirts that read “Soshified”?“Soshi” is a shortened form of “Sonyeo Shidae,” the Korean name of the girl group?sang the group’s song “Gee” while performing a synchronized dance to the music. The YouTube video of the popular Girls’ Generation song “Gee” had more than 56 million hits as of October 2011. In June 2011, young fans came from all over Europe?the UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, and elsewhere?to see Korean idol groups including TVXQ!, Super Junior, SHINee, Girls’ Generation, and f(x) at Le Zenith de Paris in France, a venue where many famous European pop acts have held concerts. In Bangkok, Thai youngsters dreaming of becoming “the next Nichkhun” (a member of boy band 2PM) hold singing and dancing competitions to Korean music every weekend. What do all of these happenings around the world have in common? The answer is “K-Pop.” K-Pop Meets the World K-Pop Makes a Splash in Europe US Starts to Notice K-Pop K-Pop Stars Break Records in Japan K-Pop Triggers New Hallyu in Southeast Asia Why K-Pop? Hybrid Entertainment The Versatility of Korean Stars Globalized Star-Making System Social Media Enables Rapid Spread History of K-Pop Birth of Korean Pop Music Korean War and US Infl uence The First Renaissance Folk Music Represents Youth Culture Superstar Cho Yong-pil and the Ballad Era Seo Taiji & Boys Open New Chapter K-Pop Goes Global The Most Popular K-Pop Artists Idol Pop R&B and Ballads Hip Hop Rock and Indie Epilogue Where Is K-Pop Headed? keyword : K-POP,korean pop music,2NE1,Girls’ Generation,SNSD,Super Junior,SHINee




Chronicle of Thailand


Book Description

Chronicle of Thailand is the story of Thailand during the reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Beginning on the day he was crowned, 9 June 1946, the book presents a vivid eyewitness account of Thailand's development through the major news events of the last 64 years.




How to Speak KPOP


Book Description

Korean language and KPOP language are two very different things. Korean pop culture has an exceptionally unique language and it still evolves further as the K-POP, K-Drama, and K-Movies have been expanding to other countries and beloved by other language speakers. Some KPOP words wouldn't be easy for even a native Korean speaker to even guess what they mean. That's because it requires a deep understanding of the cultural background first before anything else.How to Speak KPOP is the most straightforward guide book to learn Korean words from Korean dramas, movies, and pop culture. It uniquely combines the most popular Korean slang words and trendy phrases that cannot be found in the ordinary Korean language textbook. And it will give you a full explanation of the cultural background of the word and help you to undersand why it is being used like that. This book will give you a fun and easy way to learn the most popular Korean words one by one.It will also help you to know how the word is pronounced with the Romanized alphabets. Please don't forget to read and say a word from the examples. The examples are thoughtfully picked to sound just like a native and a true KPOP fan who knows what KPOP language is all about. Try out words you learned to your Korean friend or write a fan letter with them to your favorite idol star. They will be pleasantly surprised.Learning a foreign language is very rewarding, and learning a cultural background even opens your eyes and heart to a whole new experience. You will get both from this book!