The cultural industry policies of the Korean government and the Korean Wave

Abstract

The paper examines how the Korean government promoted Korea’s cultural industries over the last 20 years. In the early 1990s, there was a radical departure in the government’s cultural industry policy, from that of political control over the cultural industries to viewing them as central to the government’s export-focused economic development strategies. The policy of developing the cultural industries was implemented in conjunction with government investment in other strategic industries, such as the information and communication technology industries. In the 2000s, the domestic market for cultural products expanded and diversified rapidly as the Korean society enjoyed improved living standards and a growing middle class demanded improved quality from Korea’s cultural products. The rapid development of other industries also facilitated the enhanced competitiveness of Korean cultural products in global markets. As a result, Korea’s cultural industries made substantial inroads into East-Asian markets in the late 1990s and into global markets in the 2000s.

Keywords:

• Korean government
• cultural industry policy
• Korean Wave

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (AKS-2010-DZZ-3101).

Notes

1. Some examples include studies of the UK Labour government’s ‘creative industry’ policy of 1997 (Oakley 2004, Hesmondhalgh 2005, Galloway and Dunlop 2007), the Australian Labor government’s ‘knowledge nation’ policy in 2001 (Cunningham 2004) and the Canadian government’ policy (Dorland 1996, Gattinger 2002, Craik et al. 2003).