Understanding hallyu: the Korean wave through literature, webtoon, and mukbang

"This book sheds light on the aspects of the Korean Wave and Korean media products less discussed - Korean literature, webtoon, and mukbang. It explores the making of these Korean popular cultural products and how they work and engage media recipients regardless of their different national, cultural, and geographical backgrounds. Drawing on narrative theory and cultural studies, the book makes a compelling argument about how to analyze the production and consumption of Korean media within and beyond its national boundary with critical eyes. The author shows how transmedial narrative studies (narrative studies across media) offers analytical and theoretical lenses through which one can interpret new and emerging media forms and contents. Furthermore, she explores how these forms and contents can be better understood when they are contextualized within specific time and place using the cultural, social, and political concepts and precepts of the region. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of Asian Studies, popular culture, contemporary cyberculture, media and culture studies, and literary theory."

Cover -- Half Title -- Endorsement -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Korean media and the Korean Wave: how and why has Korean popular culture reached the globe? -- Narratological approach to Korean literature, webtoon, and mukbang video -- Chapter summary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 1 Korean literature wave: Transcultural and transnational reading of The Vegetarian and Bad Friend -- The Vegetarian: eco-feminism, unnatural narrative, and unreadable mind -- Bad Friend: visual invitation to painful memories -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 2 Korean webtoon wave: Narratological, technological, and medial innovations of Korean digital comics -- Webtoon 101: the art of transmedia storytelling -- Dr. P Series: consumption of unreadable minds and ugly feelings -- Encountered: digital narrative and embodied and experiential reading -- Notes -- Bibliography -- 3 Korean mukbang wave: Making sense of eating and broadcasting and its techno-mediated narrative environment -- Korea as a cultural site for mukbang and mukbang's global spread -- Case study: BJ Changhyun, "Roulette Mission Mukbang" -- Understanding digital media's new dynamics between author/producer/entertainer and reader/consumer/fan -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.