This study examines the role that fan communities in Israel and Palestine play in the transcultural dissemination of Korean popular music, or "K-pop." Based on in-depth interviews with fans, a survey of K-pop online communities, discourse analysis of online discussions, and participation in K-pop gatherings, this article examines the practice of K-pop, its localization and institutionalization, and its influence on the identities of fans. Special attention is given to the role of K-pop fans as cultural mediators who create necessary bridges between the music industry and local consumers and thus play a decisive role in globalizing cultures. Typically, literature on the globalization of popular culture either utilizes a top-down approach, depicting powerful media industries as making people across the world consume their products, or emphasizes a bottom-up resistance to the imposition of foreign cultures and values. This article suggests that popular culture consumption not only changes the lives of a few individuals but that these individuals may themselves play a decisive role in connecting globalized culture with local fandom.
While the overall majority of Hallyu research has looked at the way fans consume Korean popular culture and how it influences their identity, this paper focuses on the way these fans serve as effective agents for marketing Hallyu and how their fandom empowers them to explore new business and social opportunities. Focusing on what we call "fan entrepreneurship, " this paper examines the evolvement of fan communities in Israel and their role as cultural agents transcending different cultural and social contexts. More specifically, it analyzes their role as promoters, distributers, and entrepreneurs of Hallyu. To examine fan entrepreneurship in action, we focus on three cases of Israeli Hallyu fans who have ventured into new fields in business, education, and social activism to conceptualize the relations between fandom, agency, and the transnational marketing of Hallyu. Our findings suggest that the Hallyu experience in Israel may be relevant for understanding the grassroots processes and mechanisms responsible for the spread and the institutionalization of cultural content across national, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries.
The majority of academic literature on Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, focuses on its acceptance in the geographically and culturally proximate societies in Asia and the economically wealthy markets of North America. Very little attention has been given to other regions such as Africa, South America and the Middle East. Thus, looking at the Israeli case study allows us to examine how Korean culture is being accepted in non-Asian, non-western and non-English contexts. The most salient characteristic of Hallyu fans in Israel is that the majority of them have never been to Korea. They experience Korean culture mostly through Korean TV dramas, and fandom itself becomes a cultural journey between the known and the unknown. This journey resembles the practice of pilgrimage, e.g. an emotional exploration of new places accompanied by a deep sense of fulfilment. Korean culture is perceived as an exotic and distant ‘other’. At the same time, this ‘other’ is domesticated by local fan communities and serves as a means to connect one’s own identity with Hallyu’s ‘promised land’. Based on media and discourse analysis, an online survey and interviews with Israeli fans, this article examines the popularity of the Korean Wave in Israel and its impact on Korea’s image among fans. The article also explores the inner world created among fans of the Korean world, the formation of a fan community and their fictional ‘Hallyu Land’.
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