Introduction

Although there are various positive implications of the current Asian representation,

specifically, Korean Pop Music, towards the west currently, along with the phenomenon

is a new rise of stereotypes and discriminatory actions from the Western side to the

Asian side. A recent article (Strochlic, 2020) stated the long history of hatred towards

Asian citizens by structuring policies that prevents them from going to the United States

until 1965. Countless attacks have been documented against Asians that are both

physical and verbal, and now, from newspapers and books to Facebook posts and

hashtags. Racism against Asians isn’t only seen in the common ground, but also in a

seemingly professional context where the deep hatred towards Asian acts has surfaced

through stolen opportunities and unfair treatment. The paper will focus on the

American Music Industry and how it had evolved to provide or to block inclusivity to

Asian acts succeeding in the west. Specifically, the thesis revolves around the success of

the Hallyu wave as a global phenomenon and the resulting impact of this on Asia’s

influence. To narrow down the study’s scope, it focuses on BTS or Bangtan

Sonyeondan, a Korean septet group that has greatly helped in paving the way for the

globalization of K-pop.
 Annotated Bibliography

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0163443720986029

The paper focuses on examining the three entities that are responsible for the

BTS phenomenon. The first entity is how digital networks have helped local artists to

engage with global artists using global media platforms. The second entity is the locality

of the K-pop industry that aimed to focus on a more local-based management for their

artists instead of advancing to a more global platforms and spaces. The last entity is the

fandom as the game changer. Ju Oak Kim explains the different fan behavior and how it

had helped greatly in breaking down language and cultural barriers some fans may feel

towards their idols. Overall, he argues that BTS is a counterhegemonic culture in the

network society that had created an alternative global culture for popular music. Ju Oak

Kim explains how the BTS sensation had managed to bring forward non-western views,

experiences, and methodologies while comforting and representing the youth today.

The study focuses greatly on the factors of how the BTS phenomenon had

developed. Ju Oak Kim explained in detail the digital networks, the K-pop industry, and

the fandom as entities that are responsible for countering hegemony in the western

world using the method of Fairclough’s (1995/2010) version of critical discourse

analysis. It also stated the possibilities of applying the ideological dimensions of Korean

transformations to other non-western views, experiences, and methodologies.

The in-depth statements of how these three entities helped in the

transnationalism of Korean culture and how it may help in the globalization of more

non-western cultures. The method stated may also help the current paper in acquiring

necessary information for its production. Using the method, the study can identify

accurately the implicit events within the K-pop community as well as to interpret the

gathered data.
 https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?

accession=bgsu1526067307402648&disposition=inline

Wonseok Lee laid out the main argument in his paper that states how K-pop is a

diverse global cultural flow amalgamating diverse races, languages, and musical genres.

The paper supports the argument by focusing on K-pop’s three aspects – race, language,

and musical genre. He points out the diversity of K-pop as a genre and how it cannot be

defined as a dance-oriented music sung by Korean artists in the Korean language. He

narrates his experiences in seeing K-pop be diversified through non-Korean and even

non Asian artists participating in the industry, music sung in non-Korean languages,

and K-pop groups not conforming to the typical look of one.

Wonseok Lee’s main source of information in the research paper is his experience

in working so far within the industry as a musician to describe fully the evolvement of K-

pop in becoming a genre of diversity. The paper itself includes various aspects of the K-

pop industry from its history since the 1990s to 2010s and even including the

breakdown of what he described as a not-so typical song by a not-so typical K-pop

band/group.

One of what can be extremely useful for the current paper is Lee’s argument

itself. He positions K-pop as not confined as only “Korean” but instead a cultural flow of

diversity onto the global world. It supports the current paper’s argument of the success

of K-pop as not South Korea’s representation but also as a representation of a various

culture outside of its locality. However, it may contradict the current paper’s proposition

of K-pop being an Asian representation only, considering Lee’s proposition of K-pop.

 The Korean Wave: Evolution, Fandom, and Transnationality

The book is composed of topics regarding the Hallyu wave. It aims to deliver the

studies made in the discovery and evolution of this form of “soft power” from South

Korea in its usage of popular culture over the last twenty years. Moreover, it dives

deeper to the gradual spread of Korean wave onto the different parts of the world such

as China, United States and Vietnam in hopes of gathering information regarding the

blossoming of this unique phenomenon.

Yoon and Jin had created a lengthy book explaining in detail Korea’s soft power

in a retrospective view of its evolution as well as the gradual spread of it to nations

outside of its locality. It discusses broadly Korean wave in general and talks about the

probable reasons why Korean culture is continually and gradually spreading to non-

Korean territories. For instance, in the United States, one of the emphasized reason why

the Korean wave is successfully spreading within is because of its sense of “woori-ness”

or being we instead of I as what was interpreted from the people themselves that are

interested in learning the Korean culture. They are fascinated with its difference towards

their own culture of full of division and individuality.

Having a brief scan over the book, the compilation of the studies discovered over

the last twenty years is useful in understanding Korean wave in its whole, in which the

K-pop culture is part of. The different sections of the book comprising of the different

countries that the Korean wave had been greatly encouraged is also useful in

understanding the varied reasons of how the Korean culture is being warmly accepted

despite the notions of the phenomenon being a propaganda or a form of imperialism

within the modern times.

 https://aclanthology.org/2020.alw-1.19.pdf

Currently, due to social media being reaching more people and thus raising

awareness on various issues that was once acceptable, hostility against any race is now

frowned upon. However, with the rise of the Covid-19 as a global pandemic back in

2020, so is the hatred for East Asian countries, specifically China, from different parts of

the world. The context of the study is the online world where the researchers have

utilized hashtags and keywords in identifying the amount of hostility towards East Asian

countries as the scapegoats of the ongoing situation. It aims to detect the online abuse to

the East Asian countries using a model and fixing errors in its usage.

The paper was more of an illustration of the usage of in-depth ground-up error

analysis and the errors in this model rather than proposing an argument. It contains

charts for the classifications of the hostility towards East Asians brought about by the

pandemic. It arrives to a conclusion of the creation of a new dataset that assists in

detecting and measuring online abuse.

Although it has no direct correlation to the K-pop genre besides the locality of the

industry, the model used in the paper can be relevant in detecting hate speech in the

online context. The model can be used to identify the different forms of online abuse

towards K-pop groups, especially concerning hate and prejudice towards Asians as a

whole as a result of the gradual spread of the Hallyu wave.