Netflix’s effects on the Korean Wave: power relations between local cultural industries and global OTT platforms

ABSTRACT

This article discusses how Netflix has influenced the local cultural industries in terms of the shift of cultural genres and the industry structure. By employing the convergence of critical political economy and sociocultural approach, it articulates whether Netflix has inroaded Korea due to the Korean Wave. It discusses whether local cultural industries firms change their norms in production to comply with Netflix's orientation and argues the ways in which the shift in the standard of cultural production has changed the cultural text in genres to determine whether global platforms arguably destroy local specificities and identities. Finally, it interrogates shifting power relationships between a global OTT platform and local players, including cultural creators and platform users, and its implications in the Korean cultural industries.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A television series aired on JTBC from December 2014 to March 2015, notably featuring the first on-screen lesbian kiss on Korean television.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service at the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2022-LAB-2230004). This work was also supported by SSHRC Insight Grant (2021).

Notes on contributors

Dal Yong Jin

Dal Yong Jin is a Distinguished SFU Professor and a Global Professor at Korea University, and his major research and teaching interests are on digital platforms and digital games, globalization and media, transnational cultural studies, and the political economy of media and culture. Jin has published numerous books, journal articles, and book chapters, including Korea’s Online Gaming Empire (2010), New Korean Wave: transnational cultural power in the age of social media (2016), and Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Production: Critical Perspectives on Digital Platforms (2021). He is the founding book series editor of Routledge Research in Digital Media and Culture in Asia, and he has been directing The Transnational Culture and Digital Technology Lab since 2021.