Aggressive yet benign: Korea’s engagement in creative industries in Africa

ABSTRACT

Korea’s global strategy of disseminating its audio-visual products (AVPs) reflects developmentalism driven by short-term commercial motivation. In Africa, however, the Korean government distributes AVPs free of charge, sometimes in the form of foreign aid with the aim of creating a market in the long run. This paper suggests ‘granted developmentalism’ as an explanation for Korea’s expansion strategy into Africa. Whereas growing cultural transactions within the global South provoke protectionist narratives, Korean AVPs are viewed as rather benign or even inspiring despite their aggressive developmentalism. Drawn on policy analysis and field research, this paper seeks to understand the dissemination and reception of Korean AVPs in South Africa and Ghana. The current pattern of Korean engagement, characterised by provision of entertainment content on the digital platform, is boosting its image as a bearer of soft power. Nonetheless, this strategy may result in reproducing existing inequality in societies that are marked by acute digital divide.

KEYWORDS:

• Creative industry
• South-South engagement
• Korea
• South Africa
• Ghana

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Whether Korea should be categorised as being part of the global South or North is subject to debate. While it shares a similar colonial history with countries in the global South, Korea’s current industrial relations with the South positions the country in the global North. In this article, Korea is included in the global South, based on its historical position in global cultural flow; despite its rising industrial and cultural influence, Korea has long been a recipient of creative products from the regional and global North, mainly Japan and the US.

2. While there are growing cultural inflows from multiple global South nations in both countries, the paper focuses on the two hegemonic and antagonistic cultural inflows for the sake of analysis. In addition, I do not include Bollywood due to the traditional reception in the two countries driven by the large size of diaspora, especially in South Africa.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Foundation of Korea [NRF- 2019S1A5B5A07106765]; and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies [Research Fund of 2020].

Notes on contributors

Suweon Kim

Suweon Kim is an assistant professor in Department of International Development Studies at Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She has been writing on the role of creative industries and digital innovations in development in the context of South-South cooperation.