Cultural intermediation and the basis of trust among webtoon and webnovel communities

ABSTRACT

This study investigates some of the previously unrecognized reading, writing and sharing trends emerging across Asian-born popular digital webtoon and webnovel platforms. These particular sectors of the creative industries are rapidly becoming energizing vehicles for transmedia intellectual property (IP) – referring to a network of interconnected media, popular culture and merchandise emanating from a single creative source. Specifically, South Korean webtoons and Chinese webnovels are cultivating new audiences and participatory cultures beyond their Asian borders, and thus playing a significant economic role in the percentage of global GDP that the broader cultural and creative industries generate annually. To shed light on how this phenomenon is shifting various modes of production, this study analyses how a range of active fans, otherwise known as ‘cultural intermediaries’, have moved to the forefront of creative industry transformations while building trust among their followers and demonstrating loyalties with the platforms on which they circulate their user-created content. Taken together, the webtoons and webnovels explored highlight some of the complex impacts and tensions on the production, circulation, and translation of popular digital media in an increasingly participatory and decentralised online and mobile environments. In so doing, it introduces important global perspectives to an area of study often firmly anchored to Western cultural products and practices, thereby contributing to current discussions on the continuing transformation of creative work in Asia's digital economy.

KEYWORDS:

• Korean webtoons
• Chinese webnovels
• cultural intermediaries
• cultural globalization
• transmedia adaptation

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributors

Aegyung Shim’s research focuses on Asia's transnational film, digital media and entertainment industries. She is a past Korea Foundation Research Fellow and visiting scholar in the Institute for Social Transformation Research (ISTR) at the University of Wollongong. She is also the co-author of Korea's Occupied Cinemas, 1893–1948 (2011), The Changing Face of Korean Cinema, 1960–2015 (2016) and South Korea's Webtooniverse and the Digital Comic Revolution (forthcoming) – co-authored with Brian Yecies. [email: [email protected]].

Brian Yecies is an Associate Professor in Creative Industries at the University of Wollongong. He researches on film, digital media, and the creative industries. He is a chief investigator on two Australian Research Council Discovery Projects: Digital China: From Cultural Presence to Innovative Nation (2017–2019), and Mobile Korean Webtoons: Creative Innovation in a New Digital Economy (2018–2020). He is the author of Korea's Occupied Cinemas, 1893–1948 (2011), The Changing Face of Korean Cinema, 1960–2015 (2016), and South Korea's Webtooniverse and the Digital Comic Revolution (forthcoming) – co-authored with Aegyung Shim, and Willing Collaborators: Foreign Partners in Chinese Media (2018) – co-edited with Michael Keane and Terry Flew. [email: [email protected]].

Xiang (Tony) Ren is a Research Fellow in the Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture and a member of the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University. He has published widely on digital publishing, creative industries and open knowledge. Working for over a decade in Chinese media industries, his current research focuses on the globalization of Chinese digital popular culture. [email: [email protected]].

Dingkun Wang is an Assistant Professor in Translation at the University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China. His primary research interests are fan translation in digital media and Chinese-language subtitling. Other areas of interest include social media, Asian cinemas, and transmedia adaptations. [email: [email protected]; [email protected]].

ORCID

Brian Yecies http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9296-6651

Notes

1 Posts vary from short comments such as ‘masterpiece’ and ‘no fun’, to much longer reader interpretations of an episode. Users can also ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ a comment, which, when amalgamated, rank comments in display order (similar to the up/down voting feature on Reddit), differentiating various Korean webtoon platforms from other social media forums.

2 Between 2007 and 2016, 149 branded webtoons were released in Korea, with such content increasing rapidly after 2013 when webtoons began to expand globally (KOCCA, 2018, p. 148).

3 See https://was.webtoonguide.com/dashboard. Accessed 23 October 2019.

4 See www.comics.org/international_stats_country/. Accessed 23 October 2019.

5 The authors thank practitioner Waraporn Sirilai for sharing her experiences of developing the webtoons Dream Come True and 1 Wish (2015–2016, 35 episodes, and 230,464 likes) – available on www.webtoons.com/th/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a 2018–2020 Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP180101841): Mobile Korean Webtoons: Creative Innovation in a New Digital Economy.