The Korean Wave (Hallyu) in East Asia A Comparison of Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese Audiences Who Watch Korean TV Dramas ) JONGHOE YANG

DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY
Volume 41 | Number 1 | June 2012, 103-147
The Korean Wave (Hallyu ) in East Asia:

A Comparison of Chinese, Japanese, and
Taiwanese Audiences Who Watch Korean TV
Dramas*
Jonghoe Yang | Sungkyunkwan University
The major purpose of this study is to find out what factors are responsible for Hallyu,
the flow and popularity of Korean popular cultural products in East Asia, and which
direction Hallyu is heading for. To do this, recent structural and institutional changes in
the region are examined and the 2008 EASS data analyzed. Opening up of the cultural
market and development of the mass media industry, especially television, laid the ground
for Hallyu in East Asia. The 2008 EASS data reveal that social proximity and two
demographic variables are common factors for the rise of Hallyu in East Asia, but
globalization and modernity variables had no effect on Hallyu. Females are more attracted
to Korean TV dramas than males, but typical Hallyu fans are youngest in China, followed
by Taiwan, and Japan the oldest. Besides these characteristics of Hallyu fans, the quality of
Korean cultural products is an important factor in their success abroad. Since the second
decade of the new millennium, Hallyu evolves into a new, or second, stage in which its
contents, strategy, and media change considerably. Hallyu, representing a case of
alternative globalization, signals a new phase in the recent history of globalization.
Keywords: Hallyu (the Korean wave), East Asia, popular culture, Audience, Korean
TV drama
*I am indebted to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments in revising this paper.
104 DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY, Vol. 41 No. 1, June 2012
Introduction
It has now been more than a decade since Korean1 popular culture has
made a massive inroad into East Asia and, subsequently, other Asian
countries. The mass media and concerned scholars have given the appellation
of Korean Wave (Hallyu in Korean) to such Korean cultural products as
television dramas, popular music, and movies becoming so popular in these
countries.2 Since the mid-1990s, Korean popular culture has spread over the
pan ethnic-Chinese countries including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and
Singapore at first, then over such Southeast Asian countries as Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, followed by Mongolia, Japan, and even
beyond East Asia.3 The Hallyu boom in Japan was ignited by a 2004 television
drama, Winter Sonata, and has since drawn a great deal of scholarly attention,
because Japan is the first modernized or Westernized country in Asia and
Japanese popular culture has been dominant in many East Asian countries
for several decades. Korea is not an exception; its popular culture has also
been strongly influenced by Japanese pop culture. Now, at least some
members of the Japanese population are fascinated with Korean popular
culture. Thus, some scholars regard Hallyu as a counter-case to media
imperialism: a fissure in West-centered globalization (Kim 2009, pp. 732-37)
or as a case proving that globalization is not a one-way traffic but a two-way
flow (Cho-Han 2003, p. 40).
The surge of popularity of Korean popular culture in these countries has
drawn anti-Hallyu sentiments and campaigns by a few local intellectuals,
popular culture industries, and mass media (Chae et al. 2009), especially in
China (Kang 2008; Yong-chan Kim 2008; Leung 2008; Yun 2009), Taiwan
(Lin 2006), and Japan (Hanaki et al. 2007), with China and Japan historically
having had either superior power or colonial power over Korea. These anti-
Hallyu movements, combined with the fact that only a particular drama (for
example, Winter Sonata in Japan) or a particular genre (e.g., trendy dramas
with a love story) has been popular in these countries, have led some scholars
1
Korea in this paper denotes South Korea only.
2
In this paper, I use the term Hallyu to mean both the flow and popularity of Korean popular
cultural products, especially media contents, in other Asian countries and beyond, as well as
exported Korean popular cultural products themselves.
3
Korean news media recently reported that a Korean idol group concert in Paris was sold out
within 15 minutes and a demonstration asking for another concert was staged in front of the Louvre
museum by ardent fans that could not get tickets (KBS News, May 2, 2011).
The Korean Wave (Hallyu ) in East Asia 105
to conclude that Hallyu is a short-term phenomenon that would last only a

few years (Kyeong-mi Shin 2006; Yoon-Whan Shin 2006).
Despite the suspicion that the Korean Wave is only a temporal and
isolated trend like a short-lived fashion, it has not only survived but
expanded to more diverse and wider products and to countries beyond East
Asia. Thus, a major Korean newspaper recently featured an article entitled
Evolving Hallyu Japan Is Now Attracted by Korean Culture. This article
quotes a Japanese manager of an advertisement and events company saying,
The Hallyu boom, which was initially limited to such TV dramas as Winter
Sonata and its main actor Yong-joon Bae, has now expanded to such areas as
Korean language, food and culture, and has evolved from passive reception to
active participation in everything Korean (Chosun ilbo Oct. 4, 2010. p. A20).
Since a Chinese newspaper coined the term Hallyu in 1997, media
reports and scholarly research on the phenomenon have mounted. Topics
and issues about Hallyu can be grouped into four broad areas. First, a
majority of them attempt to explain the rise of Hallyu by asking questions
like: What factors and backgrounds are responsible for this phenomenon?
Why have Korean popular cultural products, and not others, become popular
in those Asian countries? (Hanaki et al. 2007; Jeon 2006; Kim 2003; Kim
2007; Lee 2006; Leung 2008; Lin 2006; Shim 2008; Yoon-Whan Shin 2006).
Second, in relation to above questions, some researchers concentrate on the
issue of Hallyus reception. Why are Asian audiences fascinated with Korean
popular culture? How do they interpret and evaluate imported Korean
cultural contents? (Hong-xi Han 2005; Kim 2009; Sin 2005; Yun 2009). Third,
there are also studies that try to assess the effects of Hallyu for both Korea
and the receiving countries. Many of them are concerned with economic
effects such as booming tourism, increasing sales of Hallyu-related products,
and its marketing potential. Others focus on changing images of Korean
people and culture in those countries where Hallyu has made a hit. A few
studies report that Korean cultural products or cultural contents have become
a part of everyday life and culture in these countries as a result of Hallyu
(Chae 2006; Choe 2007; Eun-kyoung Han 2005; Hong, Gang, and Ohya2007;
Hwang 2008; Iwabuchi 2008; Kim et al. 2007). Finally, Hallyu has prompted
theoretical debates on the interpretation of globalization (Cho-Han 2003;
Chua 2004; Iwabuchi 2008; Kim 2009; Kwon 2006; Shim 2006; Yang 2007).
Some observers regard Hallyu simply as part of globalization propelled by the
logic of capital (Cho-Han 2003). Others see it as a case to counter media
imperialism (Kim 2009). Still others argue for regionalization as part of, or
against, globalization occurring in Asia. This latter view considers Hallyu as
the symptom of a new regional cultural formation (Chua and Iwabuchi

2008).
After more than a decade since its inception, the question of longevity,
or the future, of Hallyu still remains a major concern of scholars, journalists,
and policy makers because peoples tastes change rapidly in this postmodern
era and a countrys popular culture is framed by many factors including
economic situations, policy measures, cultural traditions, and historical
contingencies. Despite skepticism and criticism, however, Hallyu is alive and
expanding today. A major purpose of this study is to provide some empirical
evidence for the presence of Hallyu in East Asia. Of course, the key for Hallyu
is the audience of Korean cultural products. Thus, I will first examine the size
and characteristics of the Hallyu audience in the three East Asian countries of
China, Japan, and Taiwan by analyzing survey data. The audience, of course,
does not reside and behave in a vacuum, but is influenced by structural and
institutional conditions such as conditions in culture industry, cultural
market, and mass media, which will also be examined as a background
utilizing statistical data and previous studies. Another purpose of this study is
to take stock of existing studies and to move one step further by generalizing
and comparing the Hallyu phenomenon among the Hallyu-receiving
countries. Past studies on this subject have mostly been case studies dealing
with one specific popular cultural product, or Hallyu, in a particular country.
Some studies have indeed compared several countries, but they focus only on
a single cultural product and on selected audiences. These studies are limited
in that they do not generalize the Hallyu phenomenon nor account for
similarities and differences among countries. By analyzing the data collected
from the national samples in 2008 for these three East Asian countries,
supplemented by an examination of structural and institutional backgrounds
for Hallyu in these countries, this study attempts to fill the gap left by
previous studies in this regard.
Specifically, this study tries to answer the following questions. First, is
Hallyu alive today in China, Japan, and Taiwan? If so, to what extent? Second,
what are the characteristics of the Hallyu audience in these countries? In what
terms is the Hallyu audience distinct from non-Hallyu audience? Third, do
the three countries differ in terms of the characteristics of the Hallyu
audience and of the structural and institutional conditions that can affect
Hallyu? How?
Theoretical Approaches to and Empirical Works on Hallyu

One of the prominent theories that inform existing studies on Hallyu is
the theory of globalization. It seems to be quite appropriate that Hallyu is
approached from the perspective of globalization, because it involves cross-
border flow of cultural products and recent globalization process in East Asia
has laid the base for it through liberalization of markets and deregulation of
the culture industry sector. In fact, Hallyu has provoked heated debates on
the nature of globalization, especially in East Asia.
There are diverse models and dimensions of globalization. A prominent
model is the political-economic one, which explains globalization in terms of
changing conditions of capitalism. According to James Mittelman (2000), for
example, the recent phase of globalization started as a response to the deep
recession in Western countries in the 1970s. In order to get over the economic
crisis, new strategies including restructuring, deregulation, privatization, and
enhanced competitiveness, which have been elevated to the neo-liberal
ideology, were adopted. In addition to the transnational ideology of neo-
liberalism, Ramesh Mishra argues, hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon form of
capitalism has also been extended and consolidated in this process (Mishra
1999, pp. 7-8). In this model, economic factors, or more precisely the logic of
capital, are foremost in importance for the modern phase of globalization,
and they subsume all other aspects of globalization.
But, globalization is a complex term involving many dimensions,
including not only economic and political but also social and cultural ones.
This study is specifically concerned with cultural globalization, the
contemporary process of which has been driven by establishment of new
global cultural infrastructure, the rise of Western popular culture, the
dominance of multinational culture industries, and an increase in cultural
exchange and interaction across national borders (Held et al. 1999, p. 341).
Cultural globalization is often associated with the notion of imperialism,
which is regarded as its earlier form (Tomlinson 1991; Schiller 1979; Crane
2002; Curren and Park 2000). According to this conception, cultural
imperialism refers simply to cultural domination, or to the imposition of a
particular nations beliefs, values, knowledge, behavioral norms, and style of
life by core nations over peripheral ones. It emerged in the 1960s as part of a
Marxist critique of advanced capitalist cultures that emphasize consumerism,
hedonism, and mass communication.
Cultural imperialism has been criticized on many grounds. For one,
cultural flow is not necessarily one-way, from the core to the periphery, but
multi-directional, sometimes flowing from the periphery to the core (Berger
2002; Crane 2002). Critiques also indicate that the theory fails to acknowledge
the significance of local resistance to imperial culture, especially the rise of
nationalism in opposition to globalization, and that it ignores the processes of
negotiation, adaptation, and indigenization on the part of receiving cultures
(Curren and Park 2000; Robertson 1994). Thus, it is often the case that,
instead of a global, uniform culture as a result of cultural imperialism, local
indigenous cultures are rediscovered, and hybrid cultures are created
(Appadurai 1990; Nederveen Pieterse 1995).
Existing works on Hallyu based on the models of globalization may be
grouped into the following three categories: the political-economic, the
cultural, and the social. The first approach emphasizes political and economic
backgrounds for the sudden boom of Korean popular culture in Asia. It takes
neo-liberalism prevalent after the fall of the communist bloc in the late 1980s
as a major contributor to the cultural flow from Korea to other East Asian
countries. Many countries in Asia have opened up their markets, especially
cultural markets, to foreign imports in the 1990s due to pressures from the
super powers and international financial organizations such as the IMF and
WTO. As a result, not only did cultural products begin to flow more freely
among Asian countries, but increasing international competition has also led
to heavier investments in the culture industry and to more choices for
cultural consumers in this region. In this view, Hallyu is simply the case of
Korean culture industry taking advantage of this changing market situation
(Shim 2006; Kim 2009).
Some critical observers view Hallyu as a product of recent capitalist
development. For example, according to Hyejung Cho-Han (2003), Korean
cultural products are the Korean version of American commercial culture,
and Hallyu is simply an extension of the Korean export industry that includes
the culture industry. Major Hallyu products are cultural products of turbo
capitalism that forsake tradition in a definite way (Cho-Han 2003, p. 35). In
this sense, Korean popular cultural products are simply commodities like any
other manufactured goods that are exported to other Asian countries.
However, Cho-Han warns against viewing Hallyu as a case of cultural
imperialism, e.g., the diffusion of superior culture to the inferior one. Rather,
it should be regarded as part of the complex and dynamic process of cultural
globalization which flows in both directions rather than in one direction.
In a similar vein, Hyun-Mee Kim (2003) explains the Hallyu phenomenon
in the context of industrial restructuring after the 1997 economic crisis. The
economic crisis and attendant IMF bailout, according to Kim, have made
Korea thoroughly reexamine the process of late modernization which was
heavily dependent on manufacturing industries and turn to high value-added
culture industry for a breakthrough (Kim 2003, p. 156). As a result, Korean
cultural products are put on the Asian market and traded like other products
along with other countries cultural products. In her case study on Hallyu in
Taiwan, Kim notes that the popular culture industry in Taiwan is still
dominated by the U.S., Japan, and China, and Korean popular culture is
regarded simply as one of the other multiple foreign products (Kim 2003, p.
178). Thus, she cautions that exportation of cultural products to other
countries is certainly a novel phenomenon for Korea but should not be
exaggerated because it is part of recent globalization occurring in Asia in
general, thanks to the combination of new digital communications technologies
and pre-modern system of circulation.
These political-economic approaches, whether critical or not, tend to
emphasize structural or institutional backgrounds for the rise of Hallyu, and
have certainly made a valuable contribution toward understanding its
institutional or material base. But these approaches are not sufficient in
explaining why Korean cultural products, and no other countries, have been
successful in this particular juncture, especially when popular culture of
Japan, which is economically and politically more powerful than Korea, had
been dominant in this region for a long time. Also, these approaches tend to
ignore the complex process of reception, which should be regarded as key in
explaining the popularity of Korean cultural products in the receiving
countries. At best, they assume passive audiences who consume, without
much pondering, whatever products provided to them by culture industries
or media. The audiences desires or needs are supposed to be manufactured
by culture industries which specialize in producing images, fantasies, and
dreams, according to a critical view on contemporary capitalist popular
culture (Kim 2003).
Thus, some researchers look to cultural aspects of Hallyu to find a clue
to its success. Many of them pay greater attention to its contents, for example,
Confucian elements or traditional values in Korean dramas, which attract
certain segments of the population of the receiving countries (Hong-xi Han
2005; Lee et al. 2006; Yang 2006). Parallel to this emphasis on cultural
contents, cultural tastes and the reception process of the audiences have been
examined and found to contain certain common elements with Korean
popular culture. Studies following this cultural reception approach agree
mostly with the cultural proximity thesis. Simply put, it posits that culture
flows more easily between culturally similar countries than between

culturally different ones (Chua 2004; Son and Yang 2003; Yang 2006). In
other words, according to this theory, people tend to accept more readily
those imported cultural products that have something common with their
own values, feelings, and experiences. And some of the Korean popular
cultural products, especially TV dramas and movies, are pregnant with
Confucian ethics and traditional values such as harmony, community, strong
morality, and respect for family ties, which seem to attract cultural
consumers in East Asia (Yoon-Whan Shin 2006; Yun 2009). Hallyu in Japan
is a typical case for this explanation. Japanese middle-aged women, who were
fascinated with the Korean drama Winter Sonata, found in the drama their
old-fashioned values such as respect for family and kinship networks,
restrained expression of love, and pure love (Hanaki et al. 2007; Jeon 2006;
Kyeong-mi Shin 2006). Others indicate that racial proximity, e.g., shared
norms of beauty, mannerism, styles in clothing, and sense of Asianness, is
the key to the flow of cultural contents in Asia, not cultural proximity (Kim
2007, p. 48).
But this cultural commonality approach is obviously not enough to
explain the Hallyu phenomenon in Asian. For one, such South Asian
countries as Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, not to mention
Mongolia and Uzbekistan, are not Confucian and share little cultural
elements with Korea (Yoon-Whan Shin 2006; Kim 2007; Yang 2006). It also
tends to ignore the complexity of the reception process and the changing
nature of national culture (Kim 2009).
In a similar vein, the concept of cultural discount emphasizes that
distinctiveness of a countrys cultural products in terms of values, believes,
and style may hinder their acceptance by consumers in other countries.
Iwabuchis account of Japanese cultural products exported to other Asian
countries is a typical example. He contends that Japanese cultural producers
are careful to remove Japanese odor from their products so as not to induce
resistance from foreign audiences (Iwabuchi 2004). In a sense, Korean
cultural products, which have indigenized Western popular culture that
resulted in a hybrid culture blending traditional Asian and modern Western
cultures, provide less cultural discount to Asian audiences who want to enjoy
modern Western popular culture but, at the same time, are reluctant to accept
the latter outright due to ideological and other reasons (Gim 2007; Hong-xi
Han. 2005; Lee et al. 2006; Lee 2006; Shim 2006; Yun 2009).
The thesis of cultural hybridity requests our attention be turned to the
tastes of young Asian audiences who prefer modern to traditional, and
Western to Confucian, cultural products, because most of them grew up in a

more prosperous period in history and are in better contact with Western
culture due to recent developments in communication and transportation
technologies. Some observers note that Korean popular cultural products are
unique in that they are mainly Western in form but mostly traditional
Confucian in contents (Yun 2009; Shim 2006; Lee 2006). These unique
characteristics of Korean popular culture have attracted many young Asian
audiences who are fond of cultural products of modern flavor but are uneasy
with Western cultural contents. Unlike Japan where Hallyu is consumed
mainly by older women, young Chinese are the majority consumers of
Korean popular culture which seems to work to fill the gap between their
desire for modern cultural products and the relative inability of the countrys
culture industry to meet their needs. A study of the Chinese culture industry
reports that the main target of TV programs in China is middle-aged
audiences who prefer traditional cultural contents over modern Western ones
and that the socialist Chinese government has kept a repressive policy on the
import of foreign, especially Western, cultural products because it is afraid
the latter may contaminate Chinese people and culture with Western
capitalist culture (Lee 2006; Yun 2009).
The reception theory or the cultural approach to Hallyu provide some
important and interesting explanations as to why Asian people like imported
Korean popular culture. But the explanatory power of these approaches is
obviously limited, because there seem to be contradictory cases and Asian
consumers of popular culture have apparently differing cultural tastes and
preferences even within a single society. Thus, some researchers argue that
peoples tastes and behaviors tend to be differentiated greatly based on diverse
social factors such as socio-economic status, demographic characteristics,
and so on in this age of information and postmodernism. In other words,
modern consumers, especially young ones, seem to emphasize their own
individuality and distinction from others in their lifestyle and cultural
consumption. Therefore, cultural contents themselves do not attract and
classify consumers, but their social and demographic differences determine
their consumption behavior. Their social backgrounds and life experiences,
especially differences in the socialization process, seem to be more important
than others in differentiating taste groups. Herbert Gans (1999) is an earlier
proponent of this thesis. He identifies five social classes in America that have
their own distinct cultural tastes and lifestyle. Crane (1992), on the other
hand, talks about culture class rather than class culture. She argues that
cultural tastes are no longer dependent on class differences but differentiated
based more on age group and gender. Many of the empirical works on Hallyu
also find that social and demographic characteristics of its consumers are
closely related to their consumption patterns (Heo 2002; Lee 2006; Lin and
Tong 2008; Mori 2008).
From the above review of theories and empirical works on Hallyu, we
may discern five distinct approaches, or groups of factors, that broadly help
explain the flow of Korean popular cultural products to other Asian
countries: structural and institutional backgrounds, globalism-nationalism
dichotomy, the proximity theses, modernity approach, and socio-
demographic factors. These approaches have contributed to the
understanding of Hallyu, but each one of them has only a limited explanatory
power if considered separately from others because they have been proved to
work in differing degrees among the receiving countries of Hallyu. It is thus
necessary to consider them together in order to have a fuller picture of the
Hallyu phenomenon. But it is impossible to consider all of them fully in a
single paper. Therefore, I will selectively consider the approaches and factors
in this study by focusing on institutional backgrounds and the tastes and
characteristics of audiences, with commonalities and differences among
different receiving countries in mind.
Data and Method of Analysis

Data
Two kinds of data are utilized in this study. One is statistical data with
regard to cultural markets and culture industry in Korea, most of which are
produced by government agencies and research institutes. Data to be
analyzed include the size as well as changes over time and variations among
countries and genres of Korean cultural products exported to East Asian
countries for the past several years. Changes in cultural policies and market
situations both in Korea and other East Asian countries are also examined.
Resulting data will provide evidence for the continuity and transformation of
Hallyu at the aggregate level. They will also provide some information on the
structural and institutional background of Hallyu.
The second, but very important, source of data in this study is the 2008
EASS (East Asian Social Survey). EASS is a national sample survey conducted
annually in four East Asian countries of China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan to
collect data on various aspects of peoples lives, opinions, and attitudes, and
the 2008 EASS was conducted in 2008 in each of the four member countries.
A brief description of the four national samples is given in table 1. Each
member country has its own questionnaire, but includes a special module
that applies to all four members. The special module for 2008 EASS is
Culture and Globalization in East Asia, which contains questions regarding
consumption of foreign cultural products, cultural values and tastes, social
distance and social networks, attitudes toward globalization, and so on. This
study analyzes responses to the questions in this special module in China,
Japan and Taiwan.
Measurement of Variables
The dependent variable is the consumption of Korean TV dramas by

respondents in China, Japan, and Taiwan. It was, after all, Korean TV dramas
that initiated and sustained Hallyu in East Asia, although Hallyu has
subsequently expanded to other cultural products such as popular music,
movies, digital games, fashion, food, etc. This variable is measured by asking,
How often do you watch Korean TV drama? Respondents were instructed
to pick one of four possible answers to this question: (1) often, (2) sometimes,
(3) seldom, (4) not at all.
There are three types of independent variables, reflecting the three major
approaches to Hallyu, that is, the globalization approach, the proximity thesis,
and the modernity theory. The globalization approach assumes that Hallyu is
simply part of the globalization process, to which each country responds
either favorably or unfavorably, i.e., accepts foreign cultural products or
resists them from a nationalistic standpoint. Globalism-nationalism that
measures this variable consists of three items, to which respondents were
asked to answer on a seven-point scale from strongly agree to
strongly disagree. The three questions are as follows. (1) The country
(respondents own country) should limit importation of foreign products in
order to protect its national economy; (2) The country should follow its
national interests even if these would lead to conflicts with other nations and
(3) Increased exposure to foreign films, music, and books is damaging our
own culture. The measure of globalism-nationalism variable is simply the
sum of the scores for the three items.
The second independent variable, social proximity, is also a composite
variable consisting of three items measuring social distance to Korean people.
This is a proxy variable for the cultural proximity thesis. Because the cultural
proximity theory is limited in its application and other types of proximity
Table 1
Demographic and Socio-economic Characteristics of the Samples (%)
China Japan Taiwan
Total 3007 2144 2066
Gender: Male 1437 (47.8) 997 (46.5) 1030 (49.9)
Female 1570 (52.2) 1147 (53.5) 1036 (50.1)
Age: Less than 30 581 (19.3) 246 (11.5) 483 (23.4)
30-49 1430 (47.6) 676 (31.5) 791 (38.3)
More than 49 996 (33.1) 1222 (57.0) 792 (38.3)
Education: Elementary 993 (33.1) 35 (1.6) 484 (23.4)
Middle-high 1554 (51.7) 1338 (62.6) 903 (43.7)
College 458 (15.3) 766 (35.8) 680 (32.9)
Working status: Working 1956 (65.0) 1307 (60.6) 1266 (61.2)
Non-working 1054 (35.1) 849 (39.4) 801 (38.7)
Subjective Bottom 01-02 500 (16.6) 142 (6.6) 180 (8.9)
status: 03-04 760 (25.3) 590 (27.5) 315 (15.6)
05-06 1411 (46.9) 1104 (51.5) 1194 (59.3)
07-08 296 (9.9) 285 (13.3) 267 (13.3)
Top 09-10 43 (1.4) 21 (0.9) 59 (2.9)
Note.Non-working includes helping family work.
such as racial proximity are proposed in explaining the popularity of Korean

popular culture in Asia (Kim 2007), a more general measure of proximity
seems to be necessary; social proximity can be an alternative. For this
measure, respondents were asked to answer yes or no to the following
three questions: (1) Can you accept Korean people working alongside you at
your workplace? (2) Can you accept Korean people living on your street as
neighbors? (3) Can you accept Korean people as close kin by marriage? The
social proximity variable is the sum of the scores for these items.
The third independent variable is the modernity-tradition variable that
which represents the modernity theory. This variable is measured by six
items, which were answered on a seven-point scale from strongly agree
to strongly disagree.. The six items are as follows: (1) It is not desirable to
oppose an idea which the majority of people accept, even if it is different
from ones own. (2) One should not express ones complaints about others in
order to have a good relationship with them. (3) When hiring someone at a
private company, it would be better to give the opportunity to relatives or
friends even if an unacquainted person is more qualified. (4) I feel honored

when people who come from the same town play an important role in
society. (5) A subordinate should obey superiors instructions even if s/he
does not agree with them. (6) It is better to let capable leaders decide
everything. This variable is also a composite variable summing the scores for
the six items.
Finally, control variables include gender, age, education (highest level of
education attended), working status (working versus non-working), and
subjective social status (subjective position on a ten-point scale) representing
respondents demographics, and socio-economic characteristics (cf. table 1
for a description of these variables).
Method of Analysis
For structural and institutional backgrounds on Hallyu, frequency tables

and some cross-tabulations are mostly given, the goal of which is to provide
some basic statistical information for the flow of Korean cultural products to
the three East Asian countries on an aggregate level.
Survey data are analyzed using such statistical methods as cross
tabulation and regression analysis. For multivariate analysis, the dependent
variable is converted into a dummy variable by combining often and
sometimes as 1, and seldom and not at all as 0. The three independent
variables are all composite variables consisting of more than one item. In
order to simplify the procedure, actual scores of the items for each variable
are added to produce the score for the composite variable. 4 For the
multivariate relationship between the dummy dependent variable and the
composite independent variables, logistic regression analyses are utilized.
Structural and Institutional Bases of Hallyu

It was, above all, the development of the Korean popular cultural market
and industry, together with globalization and expansion of the Asian market
that made Hallyu possible. This will be reviewed briefly below.
Korean cultural market had been closed to foreign input for quite a
while, and its culture industry had been very much underdeveloped due to
the governments strict control of cultural flow and cultural market since the
See appendix for factor analyses results for these variables.

4
liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945. The Kim Young Sam
government (1992-1997), the first civilian government since the military
dictatorship of two-and-a-half decades, took neoliberalism as its basic
ideology and liberalized Korean economy by joining the WTO in 1995 and
the OECD in 1996. This neoliberal economic policy is at least partly
responsible for the 1997 economic crisis, which brought about the IMF
intervention and liberalization policies. Subsequent Kim Dae Jung
government (1998-2003) had no choice but to follow the IMF-mandated
structural reform which emphasized liberalization, deregulation, and
privatization (Yang 2007, p. 184).
As part of liberalization, Korean cultural market began to open to
foreign influence. Allowing Hollywood film distributors to do business in
Korea in 1988 was probably the first foreign intrusion into the Korean
cultural market, although foreign films were screened by local distributors
within the limit of certain quotas set by the government even before this
event. Since the mid-1990s when cable television services started, the number
of television channels has greatly expanded, followed by rapid increase in
importation of foreign programs. Ban on importation of Japanese popular
culture, which had been imposed for more than five decades, has been lifted
step by step since 1998. These are a few of the events that have made the
Korean cultural market wide-open, resulting in its globalization and
enhanced competitiveness (Shim 2008; Yang 2007).
Korean government also realized and emphasized the economic value of
the culture and media industry. The government has, since the early 1990s,
supported the culture industry by establishing the Culture Industry Bureau
for the first time in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 1994 and by
enacting the Motion Pictures Promotion Law in 1995, which encouraged big
corporations (jaebeol) to invest in the film industry. In response to this
government effort and to the opportunities to make a profit in this sector,
jaebeols actively participated in the industry but had to withdraw shortly after
the 1997 economic crisis under the IMF-mandated restructuring scheme.
However, their short-lived participation has left an important and positive
legacy in the industry in the form of highly educated young professionals
with top-notch management skills (Shim 2006; Yang 2007).
In addition to these government actions and market changes, the
dramatic expansion of communications and information industries, their
extensive penetration into everyday life, and peoples greater concern with
quality of life as a result of improvement in life conditions have contributed
greatly to the development of culture industry.5

Recent changes in other Asian cultural markets are no less important for
the rise of Hallyu. Below, I will examine changes in the three East Asian
countries cultural markets, culture industries, and policies.
Japan has a unique place in East Asia because it is the first modernized
country in Asia and the only country that colonized many parts of the region
in modern times. Because of these facts, at least in part, it has always looked
to the West and considered itself as being in Asia but not part of Asia (Chua
2008, p. 80) or always in and yet always above Asia (Iwabuchi 2004, p. 150).
This attitude of Japan is forward and the rest backward is probably
responsible for its reluctance to actively engage in a cultural relationship with
other Asian countries. Japanese popular culture, however, has been popular
since 1970 in a few East Asian countries such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and
Singapore. At first, audiences of Japanese popular culture in these countries
were limited to a minority of enthusiasts but became widespread in the 1990s,
especially among young people. At that time, Japanese culture industry,
which had been mostly inward-looking because its domestic market was
large enough to support it, began to search for overseas cultural markets.
Paradoxically, the popularity of Japanese popular culture began to wane by
then (Iwabuchi 2002).
Japans cultural relationship with Korea had been strained for a long time
because of the aforementioned ban on importing Japanese popular culture
due to Koreas experience of colonial rule by Japan for 35 years. However,
even before the opening-up of Korean cultural market to Japanese cultural
products, they were smuggled in by enthusiastic fans and copied by Korean
cultural producers, most notably television programs. Concurrently, a few
Korean popular singers gained fame in Japan even before 1998, and some of
the Korean films, such as Shiri, were well-received by the Japanese audience
in early 2000s (Kyeong-mi Shin 2006). A series of events including the 1988
Seoul Olympic Games and the 2002 FIFA Korea-Japan World Cup also
helped change Koreas image in Japan and the otherwise sore relationship
between the two countries to a friendly one (Mori 2008).
Above all, it was the television drama series Winter Sonata that raised
Hallyu to its zenith in Japan. It was aired in 2003 by NHK satellite, and
rebroadcasted in 2004 by NHK free-to-air station in response to overwhelming
audience ratings. It has had far-reaching effects on Japanese reception of
Korean popular culture since then; in 2004 alone, 29 Korean movies were
See Shim (2008) and Yang (2009) for a detailed account of these changes.
5
screened in Japan and 63 terrestrial television stations out of a total of 127

broadcast 70 Korean dramas in early 2005 (Kyeong-mi Shin 2006, p. 234).
Japanese and Korean experts often mention the following reasons for the
enormous popularity of Winter Sonata, such as Japanese audiences sense of
nostalgia and high quality of the drama, traditional values such as family-
centeredness, pure love, restrained human relationship, simple and slow-
moving story, stagnation of Japanese society following a long-term economic
recession, and changes in Koreas image among the Japanese (Kyeong-mi Shin
2006, p. 236-42; Yoon and Na 2005a, 2005b). Each of these reasons may have
contributed to the rise of Hallyu in Japan to a certain extent. But the major
factor for Korean dramas appeal in Japan seems to be the nostalgia of the
middle-aged Japanese audience who found the social and cultural atmosphere
of 20 to 30 years ago in Korean dramas (Chae and Yoon 2006). In fact,
according to Iwabuchi, the Japanese audience in general tends to view popular
culture of other Asian countries with a sense of nostalgia arising from the
attitude that Japan is at a higher level of development than the rest of Asia
which is regarded as being culturally and historically backward vis--vis
Japan (Iwabuchi 2008, pp. 245-49).
The Peoples Republic of China had been a secluded communist country
since 1949, but it made a drastic transformation of its communist economy
into a market economy under Deng Xiao Pings four modernization policy
in the 1980s. The drive towards more liberalized economic reforms has not
only geared to a great expansion of mass media but also has been translated
into a gradual commercial view on media policy. Competition among mass
media in attracting audiences has become keen, which has led them to adopt
such measures as making more of entertaining and profit-making products,
importing them from abroad, and co-producing with non-Chinese finance
(Stockman 2000, pp. 169-70).
In the early 1990, the film and television industries were liberalized, and
cable and satellite television networks grew rapidly, due in part to the
development of media technologies and also in part to popular demand for
leisure from economically improved audiences. Satellite television networks
have made broadcasts from Taiwan and Hong Kong available to Chinese
viewers, which resulted in the state losing its monopoly over broadcasting.
Subsequently, the state changed its policy on television production from
literature and arts to entertainment, and the media industry took profit
maximization as its prime motive (Leung 2008, p. 58).
The burgeoning of local television stations and the scarcity of local
programs due to low production capacity have made Chinese television
stations turn to foreign programs which are cheaper than local productions
and which often provide ideas and formats to be adopted by local producers
(Leung 2008). In fact, there have been a flow of media contents among ethnic
Chinese countries, i.e., Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China. As well, a
study reports that Japanese television programs were popular among Chinese
television viewers in the 1970s and 1980s, but Japanese programs have
become less popular and consumed by only a fragmented young audience in
the 1990s (Iwabuchi 2002, pp. 123-37).
However, liberalization of media in China does not mean total freedom
of speech such as enjoyed by the media in the West. Television production is
still heavily regulated and censored by such government agencies as the State
Administration of Radio, Film and Television. 6 Chinese government is
especially sensitive towards foreign elements, which is regulated by such
policy measures as the quota system that limits foreign programs to less than
20 percent of the total broadcasting time and restriction on broadcasting
foreign programs during prime time (Leung 2008).
Thus, Hallyu in China should be examined in the context of balancing
between market-driven modernization on the one hand, and social
conservatism and political (and ideological) dictatorship on the other
(Leung 2008, p. 58). The case of Korean television drama Dae Jang Geum
(Jewel in the Palace), which was a phenomenal hit in China, is a good
example of this complex situation. Dae Jang Geum was imported first by a
provincial satellite television station, Hunan TV, from a Taiwanese television
station who had copyright ownership of the drama. One of the major reasons
Hunan TV imported Dae Jang Geum is that the drama had already proven
to be extremely popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Because local stations are
not allowed to approach foreign distributors directly, however, Hunan TV
had to buy the right to broadcast from a Taiwanese TV station instead of the
original Korean producer. In order to promote this Korean drama, Hunan
TV employed various publicity programs paralleling the content of the
drama, published booklets depicting its story, cast, historical background,
and so on, and indigenized it through dubbing and subtitling (Leung 2008;
Chua and Iwabuchi 2008). Other reasons for the success of Dae Jang Geum
include its depoliticized, culturally correct nature in the sense that the
This agency recently sent out directives to all major television stations not to broadcast
6
entertainment programs for three months but to broadcast only those dramas and documentaries
which depict or propagate Chinese Communist revolution and socialist ideology in order to
commemorate the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party (Chosun ilbo,
May 6, 2011).
drama focuses on family values and commercial competition which are

culturally proximate and politically neutral (Leung 2008, p. 64), unlike
Western and Japanese popular culture which is ideologically threatening and
emotionally unacceptable (Yun 2009).
In Taiwan, cable channels make up a major part of the television
industry from the start, supplementing the three free-to-air stations whose
signals could not be received by some of the countrys population. Since the
late 1970s, illegal cable television stations have burgeoned rapidly to meet the
audiences demand for entertainment programs which the three terrestrial
television stations cannot provide due to the authoritarian governments strict
control over them. Since Taiwan became an independent state that seceded
from mainland China in 1949, the KMT (The Nationalist Party) government
had run the country under martial law, and every aspect of society was tightly
controlled by it.
The government tried to stop the illegal cable channels, but in vain. Or it
may be better a description to say that the Taiwanese government took a
hands-off policy on television, imposing loose restrictions on ownership,
number of channels, number of foreign programs, and so on. Since the 1980s,
democratic and liberal movements have sprung up as a result of strong
economic growth and market liberalization, and the government finally lifted
martial law in 1987. Under pressure from the US, a new copyright law was
passed in 1992 and a new cable television law in 1993, which legalized the
cable television stations and allowed them to broadcast foreign programs up
to 80 percent of the air time. It was estimated that more than 80 percent of
the Taiwanese audience watched cable television channels, which numbered
more than 120 as of the early 2000s (Lin 2006; Kim 2003).
As a result of these changes in the media industry, Taiwanese cable
television stations began to import a large number of foreign programs in the
1990s. The increased number of channels demanded equally large number of
programs, while the share of each channel in the market decreased. For
example, a study reported that the share of the top ten programs in the
viewership ratings amounted to only 4 percent. Thus, in order to make a
profit, channel providers had to resort to importation of foreign programs
that are relatively cheaper than domestic production, but of high quality.
During the period of illegal cable system, imported television programs were
mostly from Hong Kong, China, and Japan, from which 62, 54, and 61
dramas were imported, respectively, for the period of 1993-1999 (Lin 2006).
Broadcasting of Japanese dramas increased rapidly after the Taiwanese
government lifted the ban on importation of Japanese cultural products in
1993, which was imposed due to its colonial history. The audiences of
Japanese television dramas were mostly young people who seemed to have
cultural tastes of a modern flavor. According to an expert on Asian popular
culture, Taiwanese consumption of Japanese TV dramas is due in part to
an emerging senseof coevalness with the Japanese, that is, the feeling that
Taiwanese share a modern temporality with Japan (Iwabuchi 2002, p. 122).
Even after the deregulation of the media industry, however, Taiwanese
cable television providers showed little interest in Korean dramas due to a
couple of factors in addition to language and cultural barriers. One factor is
political: The long-standing friendly relationship between the two countries
was abruptly ended in 1992 when Korea established formal diplomatic
relationship with Peoples Republic of China (PRC). The other is cultural:
Taiwanese consumers perceived Korean cultural products as backward (Lin
2006; Kim 2003). This situation changed since the late 1990s, when GTV, a
cable channel which specialize in domestic programs mainly for older rural
housewives, began to import Korean dramas because the latter were much
cheaper than domestic ones and of high quality. The imported Korean
dramas were domesticated before broadcasting, with Chinese dubbing and
subtitling, inserting Taiwanese pop songs at the beginning, replacing OSTs
with Taiwanese songs, and adapted translation (i.e., the original version of the
drama was reconstituted in accordance with Taiwanese cultural system)
(Hwang 2007; Kim 2003). GTV did not even label these imported Korean
dramas as Korean dramas.
It was in 2000 that Hallyu took off in Taiwan, when a Korean drama
entitled Fireworks became an immense success. Other channel providers
soon followed suit and Korean dramas began to replace Japanese ones in
Taiwanese television, at least in part. It should be noted, however, that
Taiwanese television stations imported only certain types of Korean
programs, mostly romantic love stories, avoiding complicated historical or
social ones, which mainly targeted female audiences. This can be a limiting
factor, according to an observer, for continuing success of Hallyu in Taiwan
(Lin 2006).
The Growth of Hallyu

Due to these changes in the neighboring countries as well as in its own
structural and institutional conditions, Korean culture industry grew rapidly.
Total sales of the Korean culture industry had grown 21 percent per annum
Table 2
Annual Export of Korean Cultural Products by Sector
(Unit: million US$, %)
Sector 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Publishing 182.2 (19.4) 191.3 (15.5) 184.9 (13.5) 213.1 (13.7) 260.0 (13.8)
Cartoon 1.9 (0.2) 3.3 (0.3) 3.9 (0.3) 4.0 (0.3) 4.1 (0.2)
Music 34.2 (3.6) 22.3 (1.8) 16.7 (1.2) 13.9 (0.9) 16.5 (0.9)
Game 387.7 (41.3) 564.7 (45.7) 672.0 (48.9) 781.0 (50.2) 1093.9 (58.0)
Movie 58.3 (6.2) 76.0 (6.1) 24.5 (1.8) 24.4 (1.6) 21.0 (1.1)
Animation 61.8 (6.6) 78.4 (6.3) 66.8 (4.9) 72.8 (4.7) 80.6 (4.3)
Broadcasting 70.3 (7.5) 121.8 (9.9) 133.9 (9.7) 151.0 (9.7) 160.1 (8.5)
Advertisement 20.8 (2.2) 9.4 (0.8) 76.0 (5.5) 87.2 (5.6) 14.2 (0.8)
Character 117.3 (12.5) 163.7 (13.2) 189.5 (13.8) 202.9 (13.0) 228.3 (12.1)
Edutainment 4.9 (0.5) 5.2 (0.4) 5.0 (0.4) 5.2 (0.3) 5.7 (0.3)
Total 939.4 1236.0 1373.2 1555.4 1884.4
(100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0)
Source.MCT (2008) p. 46 for the period from 2004 to 2006; MCST (2010b) p. 79 for the
years 2007 and 2008.
for the period of 1999-2003, compared with the GDP growth rate of 6.1
percent for the same period. The industrys growth rate has slowed down
since 2003, with an average of 4.2 percent per year for the period of 2004-
2008, due primarily to the recent world-wide economic recession (MCT
2003, p. 28; MCST 2010a, p. 19). The publishing industry was the largest in
terms of its share in the total sales (35.7 percent) in 2008, followed by
broadcasting (18.6 percent), advertisement (15.8 percent), and game (9.5
percent).
As globalization swept throughout the world, many of the Asian national
markets began, from the early 1990s, to open their doors to foreign cultural
flows. The Korean culture industry has gradually participated in the
international market, exporting its products in increasingly large numbers
firstly to such East Asian countries as China, Taiwan, and Japan and
subsequently to the regions beyond East Asia. For example, the total value of
exportation of the Korean culture industry was 413 million dollars in 1998,
but increased more than twice to 939 million dollars in 2004. It took only
four years for the total amount of export to double to 1,884 million dollars in
2008 (see table 2). The digital game industry has led the export drive,
comprising 58 percent of total export in 2008, followed by publishing (13.8
percent), character (12.1 percent), and broadcasting (8.5 percent). These four
Table 3
Annual Export of Korean Cultural Products by Destination
Southeast North
Year China Japan Europe Others Total
Asia America
2006 233.2 343.9 109.6 340.4 98.0 136.9 1262.1
(18.5) (27.2) (8.7) (27.0) (7.8) (10.8) (100.0)
2007 306.8 356.6 173.8 356.2 121.8 95.3 1410.5
(21.7) (25.3) (12.3) (25.3) (8.6) (6.8) (100.0)
2008 362.8 371.9 355.4 407.1 183.6 123.2 1804.0
(20.1) (20.6) (19.7) (22.6) (10.2) (6.8) (100.0)
Source.MCT (2008) p. 101 for the year 2006; MCST (2009b) p. 97 for the year 2007;
MCST (2010b) p. 81 for the year 2008.
sectors combined account for more than 90 percent of export and have been
leading exporters for the past decade, with little variations among them in
terms of relative weight. The game industry has always been the leading
exporter with its weight increasing, while the share taken up by the publishing
industry has been decreasing considerably. The other two sectors seem to
remain stable, while the total amount of export by these industries has been
steadily increasing.
In terms of destination, more than half of the Korean culture industry
export goes to Asian countries, with the distant second being North America.
Japan has been the leading importer of Korean cultural products, but China
and Southeast Asia are rapidly closing the gap with Japan. As seen in table 3,
Japans share of Korean export in 2006 was 27.2 percent, while China and
Southeast Asia took up 18.5 percent and 8.7 percent, respectively. But these
shares changed to 20.6 percent, 20.1 percent, and 19.7 percent, respectively, in
2008. There are also considerable variations among the countries in terms of
importation of cultural products. More than 80 percent of Chinas total
import from the Korean culture industry was from the game industry in
2008, followed by 10.6 percent from the character industry, 5.4 percent from
the publishing industry, and 2.2 percent from the broadcasting industry. The
figures for Japan were 61.2, 3.4, 6.7, and 17.6, whereas those for Southeast
Asia were 68.0, 5.9, 19.5, and 4.8, respectively. Thus, character was the second
major import for China besides game, broadcasting for Japan, and publishing
for Southeast Asia.
Since Hallyu started with the export of Korean television dramas, and
since media industry is the most influential in affecting peoples attitudes and
Table 4
Annual Export and Import of Korean Broadcasting Programs
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Export 6.0 8.3 10.0 12.7 13.1 18.9 28.8 42.1
growth rate (8.3) (38.7) (20.4) (27.1) (2.9) (44.3) (52.3) (46.2)
Import 63.9 57.3 27.0 28.7 29.1 20.4 25.1 28.1
growth rate (49.3) (-10.4) (-52.8) (6.2) (1.3) (29.7) (22.8) (11.8)
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Export 71.5 123.5 147.7 162.6 180.2 183.6 187.0
growth rate (69.6) (72.8) (19.6) (10.1) (10.8) (1.9) (1.9)
Import 31.1 37.0 31.7 32.3 21.8 65.9 10.4
growth rate (10.8) (18.9) (-14.6) (1.9) (-32.3) (201.8) (-84.2)
Source.MCT (2005) p. 255 for the period from 1996 to 2003.
MCST (2009) p. 329 for the period from 2004 to 2008.
KOCCA (2011) p. 5 for the years 2009 and 2010.
tastes, I will look more closely at the performance of the broadcasting

industry. In 1996, Korea exported 6 million dollars worth of broadcasting
programs, while importing 63.9 million dollars of broadcasting programs.
Within 5 years, however, broadcasting export grew threefold to 18.9 million
dollars in 2001, which contrasts with the threefold reduction of import. For
the first ten years of the new millennium, export of media programs
increased ten times from 18.9 million dollars to 187 million dollars in 2010.
The growth rate peaked during the five-year period from 2001 to 2005, with
an average annual growth rate of 57 percent. Since then, growth rate has
much slowed down a lot, obviously reflecting the recent stagnation in the
world economy (table 4).
Among the programs exported, drama stands out, accounting for about
90 percent of the total broadcasting export in the past five years. Among
other programs, entertainment, animation, and documentary each account
for more than 1 percent of the total program export. Export of documentary
programs in particular jumped from 0.9 million dollars (0.8% of the total
export) in 2009 to 9.8 million dollars (6.5%) in 2010 (table 5). In terms of
destination of broadcasting export, Japan is the biggest importer (81.6 million
dollars, or 53.9%, of the total in 2010), followed by Taiwan (20.0 million
dollars, 13.2%), and China (18.2 million dollars, 12%). But the share of total
Table 5
Export of Korean Broadcasting Programs by Genre, 2005-2010
(Unit: 1,000 US$, %)
Genre 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Drama 98,913 90,131 96,391 105,369 107,496 132,677
(93.4) (91.2) (89.7) (91.0) (90.7) (87.6)
Documentary 222 688 1,645 627 949 9,786
(0.2) (0.7) (1.5) (0.5) (0.8) (6.5)
Animation 121 292 2,436 6,111 3,074 1,979
(0.1) (0.3) (2.3) (5.3) (2.6) (1.3)
Music 37 234 - 26 51 11
(0.0) (0.2) - (0.0) (0.4) (0.0)
Entertainment 2,658 4,443 3,640 1,864 5,128 4,043
(2.5) (4.5) (3.4) (1.6) (4.3) (2.7)
Education 360 441 1,323 963 724 232
(0.4) (0.4) (1.2) (0.8) (0.6) (0.2)
Others 3,424 2,615 2,026 834 612 2,670
(3.3) (2.6) (1.9) (0.7) (0.5) (1.8)
Total 105,885 98,844 107,461 115,694 118,496 151,397
(100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0)
Source.MCST (2010b) p. 335 for the period from 2005 to 2008; KOCCA 2010 p. 8 for the
period from 2007 to 2009; KOCCA (2011) p. 11 for the year 2010.
export for Japan has been decreasing while those for China and Taiwan have
been increasing. These three East Asian countries have imported more than
80 percent of the total Korean broadcasting export in the past five years (table
6). Again, drama accounts for more than 90 percent of program import for
these three countries, followed by entertainment and documentary in 2009
(table 7).
From the above analysis of aggregate data, we may conclude that the
international flow of Korean cultural products has expanded continuously for
the past decade, with some fluctuations due to external factors such as
economic recession, policy changes, and anti-Hallyu movement. The main
actor of Hallyu, that is, TV drama, has especially fared well, with its export
growing more than 30 percent for the period of 2006-2010. Hallyu has
recently spread widely beyond East Asia, but Japan, China, and Taiwan are
still its main destinations. However, it should be noted that the three
countries differ in the favored contents and forms of Korean popular culture
and in the process of its reception, as shown here and documented in many
Table 6
Export of Korean Broadcasting Programs by Destination, 2005-2010
(Unit: 1,000 US$, %)
Destination 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Japan 65,511 47,632 53,494 79,113 74,791 81,615
(61.9) (48.2) (57.4) (68.7) (63.1) (53.9)
China 12,822 12,442 8,328 9,300 12,171 18,216
(12.1) (12.6) (8.9) (8.0) (10.0) (12.0)
Taiwan 11,942 20,473 17,131 7,769 11,616 20,011
(11.3) (20.7) (18.4) (6.7) (9.9) (13.2)
Southeast 8,584 12,686 8,271 4,533 11,857 13,771
Asia* (8.1) (12.8) (8.9) (8.2) (10.6) (9.1)
U.S.A. 2,281 733 792 6,025 3,996 1,996
(2.2) (0.7) (0.8) (4.8) (3.4) (1.3)
Others 4,745 4,878 5,249 3,954 4,065 15,789
(4.5) (4.9) (5.6) (3.4) (3.4) (10.4)
Total 105,885 98,844 93,265 115,694 118,496 151,398
(100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0) (100.0)
Source.MCST (2010b). p. 335 for the period from 2005 to 2007; KBI (2009) p. 17 for the
year 2008; KOCCA (2010) p. 15 for the year 2009.
* Southeast Asia includes Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
Table 7
2009 Export of Broadcasting Programs by Genre for China, Japan, and
Taiwan
(Unit: 1,000 US$, %)
Drama Documentary Animation Entertainment Education Total
Japan 61,686 86 0 2,031 506 64,309
(95.9) (0.1) (3.2) (0.8) (100.0)
China 9,480 27 0 796 0 10,303
(92.0) (0.3) (7.7) (100.0)
Taiwan 11,433 40 5 88 0 11,565
(98.9) (0.3) (0.0) (0.8) (100.0)
Source.KCC (2010) p. 117.
other studies.
It should also be pointed out that expansion of export of Korean cultural
products or broadcasting programs is only partial evidence for the
continuing and increasing presence of Hallyu in these countries. As a cultural
phenomenon involving peoples attitudes and perceptions, Hallyu does not

necessarily require massive consumption of Korean cultural goods; it has
usually been induced more often by widespread cultural reception such as
watching TV or listening to music. Thus, a single TV drama such as Winter
Sonata in Japan or Dae Jang Geum in Taiwan and China was enough to
spur public interest in Korean cultural products and to start the Korean
Wave. What really matters in discussions and explanations on Hallyu is how
many people favor and actually watch or listen to Korean cultural contents, to
what extent they do it, and why they do. The next section is devoted to
exploring these aspects of Hallyu through analysis of survey data.
Size and Demographic Characteristics of Hallyu Audiences

The Hallyu phenomenon has usually been described by either the
viewership ratings of Korean television dramas, media events such as fan
meetings or media reports regarding Hallyu-related news and events. But the
scope and breadth of Hallyu in a country or a region as a whole have rarely
been investigated in earnest, except for speculative reports or impressive
descriptions. The 2008 EASS data may provide a reliable set of data at this
juncture for this purpose.
Table 8 shows how many people watch Korean television dramas and
how often they watch in the three East Asian countries of China, Japan, and
Taiwan. Among the three countries, Chinese audiences watch Korean
television dramas most, followed by Taiwan and Japan. According to the
same table, 11.1 percent of the Chinese sample view Korean dramas often,
28.8 percent sometimes, and 28.8 percent seldom, while 31.3 percent do not
watch them at all. Thus, it is safe to say that about 40 percent of the Chinese
people are Hallyu fans. For the Taiwanese sample, almost the same
proportion (31.8 percent) as that of the Chinese sample does not watch
Korean dramas at all. But a little more than 30 percent of the Taiwanese
sample may be regarded as part of Hallyu, fewer than the Chinese
counterpart. Even fewer Japanese turn out to be fans of Korean television
dramas. More than half of the Japanese sample responded that they do not
watch Korean television dramas at all. Only 4.1 percent of them watch them
often and 19.2 percent sometimes.
Thus, if we define Hallyu fans as people who watch Korean television
dramas often or sometimes, about one third of the East Asian population
may be dubbed Hallyu fans. This survey data also reveal that there are clear
differences among the three countries in terms of the scope and breadth of
Hallyu. Hallyu seems to be the most widespread and visible in China,
followed by Taiwan and Japan. The distance between Japan on the one hand
and China and Taiwan on the other hand is greater than that between China
and Taiwan. This is, of course, only partial evidence for Hallyu in East Asia,
but data clearly indicate that Hallyu is alive in East Asia and that there are
visible variations among receiving countries.
The survey data analyzed here cannot answer the question of whether
Hallyu has grown or withered in East Asia since its inception in the late
1990s. Increase in export of Korean broadcasting programs as shown in table
4 does provide a partial answer to this question: Hallyu has indeed grown,
but the growth rate has shrunk considerably in recent period, cautioning us
against expecting an overly optimistic future for Hallyu in East Asia.
Who are the audiences of Korean television dramas? Cultural theories
suggest that demographic variables are usually related to cultural tastes. In
the case of Hallyu, women, more than men, in general are more likely drawn
to Korean dramas, according to previous studies. On the other hand, ages of
audiences vary, depending on the characteristics of a particular drama; they
also vary among countries. In fact, the 2008 EASS survey reveals that there
are more female audiences of Korean television dramas than male audiences
in all three East Asian countries (see table 8). In China, a little more than half
of the female sample watches Korean dramas often or sometimes, in contrast
to 28 percent of the male sample. Likewise, the proportion of Taiwanese
female audience is about twice that of male (44.3 percent versus 21.6
percent). Japan is not an exception; 28.3 percent of the female respondents
turned out to be Hallyu fans, as compared to 17.4 percent of their male
counterpart.
Unlike gender, the age pattern of Korean drama fans is not uniform
among the three countries. In China, for example, a clear age pattern can be
detected; the younger a Chinese, the more likely s/he is a consumer of Korean
popular culture. As seen in table 8, 59.4 percent of Chinese who are younger
than 30 watch Korean dramas often or sometimes, in contrast to 21 percent
of those over 60. In contrast, more than half of older Chinese who are 60 or
over never watch Korean television dramas, while the same is true of only
14.8 percent of young Chinese under 30. Taiwanese fans of Korean dramas
are little older than those in China. More than 38 percent of the Taiwanese
sample in their 30s and 40s and 36 percent of those under 30 may be
classified as Hallyu fans, whereas only 19.7 percent of older Taiwanese aged
60 or over watch Korean dramas often or sometimes.
Table 8
Frequency of Watching Korean Drama by Gender and Age Group
China
Watching K. D. Male Female Total 18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70+ Total
Often 77 257 334 134 84 61 40 11 4 334
(%) 5.4 16.4 11.1 23.1 11.4 8.8 7.2 3.1 4.5 11.1
Sometimes 323 544 867 211 273 188 117 66 12 867
(%) 22.5 34.6 28.8 36.3 37.0 27.2 21.2 18.6 13.6 28.8
Seldom 477 387 866 150 211 226 168 90 21 866
(%) 33.2 24.8 28.8 25.8 28.6 32.7 30.4 25.4 23.9 28.8
Not at all 560 380 940 86 170 217 228 188 51 940
(%) 39.0 24.2 31.3 14.8 23.0 31.4 41.2 53.0 58.0 31.3
Total 1,437 1,570 3,007 581 738 692 553 355 88 3,007
Japan
Often 24 63 87 4 9 13 25 24 12 87
(%) 2.4 5.5 4.1 1.6 2.6 4.0 6.2 5.4 3.2 4.1
Sometimes 150 261 411 33 58 56 111 98 55 411
(%) 15.0 22.8 19.2 13.4 16.7 17.1 27.5 22.0 14.7 19.2
Seldom 251 291 542 55 82 95 111 119 80 542
(%) 25.2 25.4 25.3 22.4 23.6 27.0 27.5 26.7 21.4 25.3
Not at all 572 532 1,104 154 199 164 156 204 227 1,104
(%) 57.4 46.4 51.5 62.6 57.2 50.0 38.7 45.8 60.7 51.5
Total 997 1,147 2,144 246 348 328 403 445 374 2,144
Taiwan
Often 46 185 231 59 51 53 44 18 6 213
(%) 4.5 17.9 11.2 12.2 13.2 13.1 11.5 8.4 3.0 11.2
Sometimes 176 273 449 115 96 104 77 34 23 449
(%) 17.1 26.4 21.7 23.8 24.9 25.6 20.2 15.9 11.7 21.7
Seldom 385 345 730 216 152 139 124 59 40 730
(%) 37.4 33.3 35.3 44.7 39.5 34.2 32.5 27.6 20.3 35.3
Not at all 423 233 656 93 86 110 136 103 128 656
(%) 41.1 22.5 31.8 19.3 22.3 27.1 35.7 48.1 65.0 31.8
Total 1,030 1,036 2,066 483 385 406 381 214 197 2,066
Age pattern is not as clear in the Japanese respondents as in the Chinese

and Taiwanese sample, however. That is, Japanese fans of Korean popular
culture are relatively evenly distributed across age groups. But a slightly larger
proportion of older Japanese respondents views Korean television dramas
than their younger counterparts. Especially a higher proportion of Hallyu
fans are in their 50s and 60s in Japan than in other age groups. For example,
33.7 percent of the age group between 50-59 and 27.4 percent of the 60-69
age group watch Korean dramas often or sometimes, contrasted to 15 percent
of those under 30 and 19.3 percent of those in their 30s.
The above analysis of the 2008 EASS survey data demonstrates that the
three East Asian countries differ in terms of the demographic characteristics
of Korean television drama fans. While female respondents tend to watch
Korean dramas more often than their male counterparts in all countries, age
groups of Hallyu fans differ among the three countries. For example, while
those less than 30 years of age are the most ardent Hallyu fans in China, those
in Taiwan are 30-39 and 40-49 age groups, and 50-59 age group in Japan.
Factors for Hallyu

Two-way Analyses
Theoretical and empirical reviews of Hallyu reveal three major factors

for Hallyu in East Asia: globalization, modernity, and proximity. These
factors are converted into variable of globalism-nationalism, social proximity,
and modernity-tradition for the sample survey, as described in the
methodology section.
The globalism-nationalism scale measures the degree to which
respondents are open to outside or foreign political, economical, and social
influence. It is hypothesized that the more global a person is, the more s/he
accepts or subscribes to Hallyu. The mean scores of this scale for the three
East Asian countries are 11.715 for Japan, 11.673 for Taiwan, and 9.750 for
China, meaning that Japanese people are the most global, followed by Taiwan
and China in that order. A series of two-way correlation analyses were
conducted to see whether this globalism-nationalism scale is indeed related
to the dependent variable, i.e., degree of watching Korean television dramas.
Table 9 shows the results of these analyses. For China and Taiwan, these two
variables turn out to be significantly related to each other, implying that
globalization contributes significantly to the spread of Hallyu in these
countries. As previous studies indicate, audiences in China and Taiwan prefer

modern, advanced, but culturally proximate and politically neutral TV
programs (Leung 2008, p. 64) but avoid Western or Japanese popular culture
which they feel are ideologically threatening and emotionally unacceptable
(Yun 2009). Under such circumstances, Korean cultural products seem to
meet these conditions in these countries. But for Japan, no relationship is
found between these two variables.
The social proximity variable measures social distance to Korea and is
used as a proxy for cultural proximity. This variable is also a composite
variable in the form of a scale from 0 to 3. Survey data indicate that Japanese
people feel closest to Korea (mean = 1.979), followed by Taiwan (1.934) and
China (1.460). Japan and Taiwan are close on this measure, while China is far
from the other two countries. Correlation analyses between this variable and
the dependent variable shows that they are significant in all three countries.
This result may be interpreted as supporting the cultural proximity thesis
regarding Hallyu with two caveats. One is that this variable is a proxy and
hence does not exactly measure cultural proximity; the other is the possibility
that exposure to Hallyu could have affected social distance to Korea, rather
than the other way around. Still, social proximity can promote Hallyu in two
ways in these countries. First, as many previous studies suggest, social
proximity can be an initial factor for East Asian audiences to choose Korean
products for the first time. Second, social proximity and consuming Korean
cultural products can reinforce each other over time. In other words,
exposure to Hallyu augments social proximity, which, in turn, increases
consumption of Korean cultural products.
The modernity thesis is also a powerful approach to the rise of Hallyu,
especially in explaining Hallyus attraction to young Asian audiences. Existing
studies usually emphasize the hybrid nature of Korean popular culture,
whose forms are mainly Western but whose contents are mostly traditional.
This particular hybrid quality of Korean popular cultural products, according
to previous studies, appeals to young Asian audiences who have a taste for
modern Western cultural products. But modernity and tradition are relative
terms; ones own popular culture could be more modern than the imported
Korean popular culture. Thus, the relationship between the modernity
variable and Hallyu was expected to differ among the countries with differing
degrees of modernity. A simple correlation analysis between the two variables
indeed supports this hypothesis. As seen in table 9, the modernity-tradition
scale is significantly associated with the frequency of watching Korean
television dramas in China and Taiwan, but not in Japan which is regarded to
Table 9
Correlation between Watching Korean Dramas and Each of the Three
Independent Variables, Globalism, Modernity, and Proximity
China Japan Taiwan
Modernity-tradition .050** (3,005) .017 (2,131) .067** (2,037)
Globalism-nationalism .079** (3,005) -.001 (2128) .079** (2,025)
Social proximity .125** (3,005) .155** (1,994) .152** (1,959)
Note.* p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
Numbers in parentheses are the size of sample analyzed.
be more modernized than Korea.

The two-way correlation analyses between the dependent variable and
the three independent variables clearly indicate cross-national variations; all
three independent variables turn out to be significant predictors of Hallyu in
China and Taiwan, but not in Japan where only the social proximity variable
has a significant relationship with viewership of Korean television dramas.
Multivariate Analyses
Since independent variables in this study cannot be assumed to be

independent from one another, multivariate analyses are necessary in order
to detect spurious relationships. For multivariate analyses, dependent variable
is converted into a dummy variable by combining (1) often and (2)
sometimes into 1 and combining (3) seldom and (4) not at all into 0. A
logistic regression analysis for the relationship between the dependent
variable and the three independent variables, that is, globalism-nationalism,
social proximity, and modernity-tradition, is conducted for each country, the
results of which are shown in table 10. Among the three independent
variables, only the social proximity variable is significantly related to
viewership of Korean television dramas in all three countries, meaning that
the closer one feels to Korea, the more likely s/he watches Korean television
dramas. The globalism-nationalism variable is proved to be a significant
predictor for Hallyu only in China and Taiwan. However, the effect of the
modernity-tradition variable on the popularity of Korean dramas disappears
completely in all three countries when the other two independent variables
are controlled for. Thus, the two-way relationship between the modernity
variable and the indicator of Hallyu turns out to be spurious.
Since demographic variables are proven to be significantly related to
Table 10
Logistic Regression Results for Watching Korean Dramas
(3 Independent Variables)
China Japan Taiwan
b b b
Modernity-tradition .006 -.003 .002
Globalism-nationalism .029* -.011 .019
Distance to Korea -.186*** .282*** .212***
(constant) -1.070*** -1.579*** -1.344***
Cox & Snells R .018 .018 .016
Nagelkerkes R .024 .027 .022
Note.b = unstandardized regression coefficient
: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
Hallyu, respondents gender and age are included in another logistic multiple
regression analysis as control variables (table 11). This inclusion of
demographic variables in the analysis effectively removes the globalism-
nationalism variable and the modernity-tradition variable from the pool of
significant independent variables in all three countries, leaving only the social
proximity variable in the pool in addition to the two demographic variables
which turn out to be very strong predictors of Hallyu, even after controlling
for other independent variables. According to an estimate by Cox and Snell,
only 4.4 percent of the total variance in the dependent variable is explained
by the five independent variables in Japan, 13.1 percent in China, and 7.9
percent in Taiwan.
Finally, three more variables representing respondents socio-economic
status, that is, respondents education, working status, and subjective social
status, are included in the regression analyses as control variables. Table 12
reports the results of the logistic regression analysis involving eight
independent variables. According to the table, respondents gender, age,
education, working status, subjective social status, and the social proximity
variable are all statistically significantly related to viewership of Korean
television dramas in China. Thus, a young female Chinese who is highly
educated, non-working, high in the subjectively evaluated status scale, and
feels close to Korea is likely to be a Hallyu fan. The two independent variables
of globalism-nationalism and modernity-tradition turn out to be not
significant in accounting for Hallyu in China.
The two demographic variables are also prominent in Japan and Taiwan.
Table 11
China Japan Taiwan
b b b
Gender (dummy) -1.050*** -.674*** -1.054***
Age -.419*** .144*** -.145***
Modernity-tradition -.006 .009 -.009
Globalism-nationalism .011 .004 .005
Distance to Korea .169*** .324*** .182***
(constant) .970*** -2.377*** -.022
Cox and Snells R .131 .044 .079
Negelkerkes R .177 .066 .110
: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
Table 12
China Japan Taiwan
Variables
b b b
Gender (dummy) -1.096*** -.726*** -1.058***
Age -.372*** .165*** -.137**
Education .186*** -.041 .016
Working status -.241** .256* -.029
Subjective status .086*** -.027 .042
Modernity-tradition -.013 .011 -.012
Globalism-nationalism .004 .006 .003
Distance to Korea .179*** .323*** .182***
(constant) .386 -2.374*** -.213
Cox and Snells R .150 .045 .081
Negelkerkes R .202 .068 .112
: * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001.
But in Japan, social proximity turns out to be the most important in

accounting for Hallyu. Other independent variables which are significantly
Table 13
Summary of Multivariate Regression Analyses: Significant Factors for
Hallyu
China Japan Taiwan
Gender Female Female Female
Age Younger Older Younger
Education Higher x x
Working status Non-working Working x
Subjective status Higher x x
Modernity-tradition x x x
Globalism-nationalism x x x
Social proximity Closer Closer Closer
Note.X = insignificant factor.
related to the dependent variables include respondents gender, age, and

working status. In addition to the globalism-nationalism variable and the
modernity-tradition variable, respondents working status and subjective
social status do not significantly affect Hallyu in Japan. Unlike a typical
Chinese fan of Hallyu, a Japanese Hallyu fan is likely to be an older working
female who feels close to Korea. A similar pattern can be found in the
regression analysis for Taiwan. Aside from respondents gender and age, only
the social proximity variable has been proven to be significant as a variable.
Thus, it is most likely that a typical Taiwanese who regularly watches Korean
television dramas is a young female who feels close to Korea.
To sum up, the social proximity variable and the two demographic
variables turn out to be significant factors for viewership of Korean television
dramas in all three East Asian countries. Indicators of socio-economic status
are also proven to be important in China, but not as much in Taiwan or
Japan. There are other variations among the three countries. Demographic
variables turn out to be important in all three countries. This is evident in the
comparison of the three coefficients of determination (R) in tables 10 to 12.
For example, Cox and Snells R for China in table 10 is 0.018, which means
that the three independent variables explain 1.8 percent of the total variance
in the dependent variable. But R increases to 0.131 when gender and age are
included in the equation (table 11), indicating that the two demographic
variables alone contribute to the increase of R by 0.113. When three socio-
economic status variables are added, the increment of R is only .019 (table
12). For Taiwan, corresponding Rs are 0.016, 0.079, and 0.081, which proves
that demographic variables have the largest share of R increment (0.063),
followed by the three independent variables (0.016) and socio-economic

variables (0.002). A similar result can be seen for Japan: Cox and Snells R for
the three independent variables is 0.018, as compared to 0.026, the increment
made by the two demographic variables. Korean television dramas seem to
attract mostly female audiencesyoung females in China and Taiwan, and
older females in Japan (table 13). The explanatory power of these eight
variables is weak in Japan (Cox and Snells R, coefficient of determination, is
.045), as compared to that of China (0.150) and Taiwan (0.081).
Summary and Conclusion

Hallyu is certainly not a premeditated event; nor did it arise merely by
chance. First of all, Hallyu would not have existed without the structural and
institutional changes of the 1990s in Korea and other East Asian countries.
Neo-liberal reforms in Korea in the 1990s led to opening its popular cultural
market to the outside and to the participation of big corporations in the
culture industry, which transformed the industry from a small and old-
fashioned one to a modern and competitive one. Since then, Korean popular
culture industry has produced high-quality cultural products that have
attracted not only domestic audiences but also foreign consumers.
At the same time, other East Asian countries opened their domestic
cultural markets to outside inputs. The uncomfortable relationship between
Japan and Korea due to the formers colonization of the latter for 35 years has
recently eased, and the inward-looking Japanese culture industry began to
look to outside, especially to East Asia, for possible markets. China, the
largest socialist country, transformed its economy to a market economy in
the 1980s and liberalized the media industry in the 1990s. Intense
competition among the numerous television networks forced them to import
cheap but high-quality ideologically acceptable foreign programs, of which
Korean television programs were one of the most suitable candidates. Taiwan,
sharing contemporary historical events with Korea such as Japanese
colonization, ideological division of the country, military dictatorship, and
late development, escaped from the firm grips of a dictatorial Nationalist
government in the late 1980s and saw burgeoning television networks,
especially cable television channels, the keen competition among which led to
a search for cheaper and well-made programs from overseas. In addition,
these East Asian countries share the Confucian cultural tradition, which
originated from China, in varying degrees.
Against this backdrop, a few Korean television drama series such as Dae
Jang Geum in China, Fire Works in Taiwan, and Winter Sonata in Japan
ignited an explosion of popularity of Korean dramas and other popular
cultural products in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Statistics show that
exportation of Korean broadcasting programs has increased dramatically
since 1996 despite the growth rate slowing down in recent years. The
majority of the export goes to the three East Asian countries, with more than
half going to Japan. And television dramas comprise about 90 percent of the
total broadcasting programs. Hallyu, at least in terms of export of Korean
broadcasting programs to East Asian countries, is well under way as late as
2010.
However, analyses of audiences in the three East Asian countries reveal
that there are some common factors as well as differences among them.
Among the three factors suggested by previous studies, only social proximity
turns out to be important for the rise of Hallyu in all three countries. The
other two variables, globalism-nationalism and modernity-tradition, have no
significant effect on Hallyu. As well, demographic variables (that is, gender
and age) are closely related to viewership of Korean dramas in all of these
East Asian countries.
But there are differences among the countries. Females are more
attracted to Korean popular culture than male audiences in all sample
countries; typically, China has the youngest Hallyu fans, followed by Taiwan,
and Japan the oldest. In addition, indicators of social status are effective in
China in predicting Hallyu audiences, but less so in Taiwan and Japan.
Thus, although individual indicators of globalism and modernity
variables turn out to be spurious in accounting for Hallyu, societal levels of
development or modernization seem to have worked at this juncture.
Japanese fans of Hallyu are mostly middle-aged women who are attracted to
Korean cultural products mainly because of a sense of nostalgia, not because
these products represent the latest fashion or the most advanced style. On the
other hand, young Chinese audiences and those with high socio-economic
status find in Korean popular culture some elements of modern Western
culture that they are eager to emulate and consume. Hallyu fans in Taiwan
seem to be in-between Japan and China. They probably see Korean popular
culture as being on par with theirs, and find certain cultural commonality
between the two countries. Indeed, cultural and social commonalities seem
to be crucial for the rise of Hallyu in these countries.
It should not be overlooked that the Korean popular cultural products
exported to these countries are well-made and of high-quality, however. I
think the quality of the products itself is important in accounting for the
success of Hallyu, because, unlike economic or material goods that are
necessary for survival, cultural products are a kind of luxury goods, i.e.,
goods for leisure that people can live without. Cheap, low-quality programs
may be easier to import, but they cannot survivefor long. Korean popular
culture produced recently, at least after the mid-1990s, differ greatly in terms
of quality to the ones produced before then.
This is evident in the recent evolution of Hallyu. Beginning from the
second decade of the new millennium, Hallyu is expanding or evolving into a
new or second stage, where Korean pop songs (so-called K-pop) are gaining
explosive popularity not only in East Asia but also in Europe and America.
The episode of May 2011 in Paris, described in footnote 3, is a good example.
Since then, K-pop stars are performing all over the world,7 and their songs
rank among the top in international markets.
Compared to the first stage in which Korean television dramas were the
chief promoter of Hallyu, this second stage distinguishes itself in several
respects.8 First of all, most K-pop stars including the so-called idol groups are
not accidentally discovered; they have been systematically selected and
trained for a long time, sometimes for more than 10 years, by entertainment
management firms. Secondly, their training and songs target international
audiences from the first, not just the domestic market. In the course of their
training, they learn foreign languages and dancing from international
trainers, and their songs are composed by a group of international
composers. Thirdly, management firms that are responsible for the initial
selection, training, and marketing of stars adopt a systematic and scientific
management system with careful planning in order to reduce the uncertainty
of the cultural market. Finally, new communication networks, such as social
networking services, become more effective and efficient in disseminating
information, knowledge, and news on popular culture than the traditional
media such as television, newspaper, and radio. This is because the latter is
mostly controlled by commercial interests as opposed to the former
representing mostly personal tastes and interests.
7
A group of Korean singers belonging to SM Entertainment recently completed a successful
world-wide tour, performing in Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Paris, and New York. The Last
performance was on October 23, 2011 in New York. Madison Square Garden; its 15,000 seats were
sold out within two weeks (Chosun ilbo, October 25, 2011).
8
The following characteristics are evident in an interview with Mr. Sooman Lee, CEO of SM
Entertainment Inc., the largest and most successful in this field in Korea (Chosun ilbo, October 16,
2011).
The initial stage of Hallyu may be a product of circumstantial factors, at

least in part; but more and more, it is becoming a planned one, deliberately
geared to the tastes of international audiences. Factors found to be effective in
East Asia in the first stage of Hallyu such as social proximity may no longer
be effective in the second stage or in the future due to Hallyus wider
reception beyond East Asia, different contents, and different media of
dissemination.
In a sense, Hallyu can be viewed as a product of recent capitalist
development. It seems to be obvious that cultural approach alone cannot do
justice to the widespread flow of Korean popular culture. Structural and
institutional changes following neo-liberalism have lain the founding block.
The contents of Hallyu may not be wholly traditional or uniquely Korean; it
could be a kind of hybridity. It may have contributed to reinforcing the
identity of East Asian popular culture, and thus, to East Asian regionalization.
But Hallyu has not stopped at the borders of East Asia. Instead, it is spreading
farther to other parts of the world, including Europe and America. In any
case, its flow clearly represents a case of alternative globalization, from the
periphery to the center, signaling a new phase in the recent history of
globalization.
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Jonghoe Yang is Professor of Sociology at Sungkyunkwan University. He was

President of the Korean Sociological Association in 2005. His research interests
include cultural sociology, environmental sociology, development and change.
Address: Department of Socioology, Sungkyunkwan University, Myungryun-dong
3-ga, Jongro-gu, Seoul 110-745, Korea [Email: [email protected]]
Appendix: Factor Analyses for Two Composite Variables

Modernity-Tradition (Principal component analysis)
China Japan Taiwan
Component
1 1 1 2
v19 .710 .705 .612 -.429
v20 .668 .641 .691 -.361
v21 .595 .591 .429 .476
v22 .542 .332 .252 .713
v23 .650 .676 .590 .072
v24 .649 .654 .663 .129
Total variance explained (%) 40.691 37.553 31.459 17.850
v19. It is not desirable to oppose an idea which the majority of people accept, even if
it is different from ones own.
( 1) Strongly (2) Agree (3) Somewhat (4) Neither agree (5) Somewhat
agree agree nor disagree disagree
(6) Disagree (7) Strongly
disagree
v20. One should not express ones complaints about others in order to have a good
relationship with them.
v21. When hiring someone at a private company, it would still be better to give the
opportunity to relatives or friends even if an unacquainted person is more
qualified.
v22. I feel honored when people from the same hometown play an important role in
society.
v23. A subordinate should obey superiors instructions, even if s/he does not agree
with them.
v24. It is better to let capable leaders decide everything.
Globalization-Nationalism (Principal component analysis)

China Japan Taiwan
v85 .833 .763 .781
v86 .584 .724 .667
v87 .695 .674 .678
Total variance explained (%) 50.600 51.992 50.485
v85. (Country) should limit the import of foreign products in order to protect its
national economy.
(1) Strongly (2) Agree (3) Somewhat (4) Neither agree (5) Somewhat
agree agree nor disagree disagree
(6) Disagree (7) Strongly
disagree
v86. (Country) should follow its national interests even if these would lead to
conflicts with other nations.
v87. Increased exposure to foreign films, music, and books is damaging our own
culture.

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DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIETY

Volume 41 | Number 1 | June 2012, 103-147

The Korean Wave (Hallyu ) in East Asia:

Jonghoe Yang | Sungkyunkwan University

to conclude that Hallyu is a short-term phenomenon that would last only a

the symptom of a new regional cultural formation (Chua and Iwabuchi

Theoretical Approaches to and Empirical Works on Hallyu

flows more easily between culturally similar countries than between

Western to Confucian, cultural products, because most of them grew up in a

Data and Method of Analysis

The dependent variable is the consumption of Korean TV dramas by

such as racial proximity are proposed in explaining the popularity of Korean

friends even if an unacquainted person is more qualified. (4) I feel honored

For structural and institutional backgrounds on Hallyu, frequency tables

Structural and Institutional Bases of Hallyu

See appendix for factor analyses results for these variables.

greatly to the development of culture industry.5

screened in Japan and 63 terrestrial television stations out of a total of 127

drama focuses on family values and commercial competition which are

The Growth of Hallyu

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

tastes, I will look more closely at the performance of the broadcasting

phenomenon involving peoples attitudes and perceptions, Hallyu does not

Size and Demographic Characteristics of Hallyu Audiences

Age pattern is not as clear in the Japanese respondents as in the Chinese

Factors for Hallyu

Theoretical and empirical reviews of Hallyu reveal three major factors

countries. As previous studies indicate, audiences in China and Taiwan prefer

be more modernized than Korea.

Since independent variables in this study cannot be assumed to be

But in Japan, social proximity turns out to be the most important in

related to the dependent variables include respondents gender, age, and

followed by the three independent variables (0.016) and socio-economic

Summary and Conclusion

The initial stage of Hallyu may be a product of circumstantial factors, at

Cho-Han, Hyejung. 2003. Geullobeol jigak byeondongui jinghuro ingneun Hallyu

yeonghwareul jungsimeuro (A Study on the Phenomenon of Anti-Korean Wave

Leung, Lisa. 2008. Mediating Nationalism and Modernity: The Transnationalization

Nordenstreng and Herbert I. Schiller. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex.

munhwajeok jeongcheseong (Japanese Youths Consumption of Korean Pop

Jonghoe Yang is Professor of Sociology at Sungkyunkwan University. He was

Appendix: Factor Analyses for Two Composite Variables

Globalization-Nationalism (Principal component analysis)

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