mcp 17 (2) pp.

183–190 Intellect Limited 2021

International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics

Volume 17 Number 2
© 2021 The Authors. Published by Intellect Ltd. Commentary. English language.
https://doi.org/10.1386/macp_00047_7

COMMENTARIES

KYONG YOON
University of British Columbia Okanagan

K-pop pedagogy in the digital

platform era

During the pandemic, it has become evident that media technology is not 1. For a comprehensive
musicological analysis
only an instrument but also constitutes a core environment in our daily lives. of contemporary K-pop
Digital media has been deeply integrated into the context of learning and as a musical form, see
teaching. As digitally mediated pedagogy has served as the default mode of Fuhr (2016).
teaching and learning in most educational settings during the pandemic, it is
important to re-examine the ways in which media pedagogy intersects with
digital culture. Consequently, this article proposes an experimental mode of
pedagogy by engaging with South Korean pop music (K-pop); this mode will
be referred to as ‘K-pop pedagogy’.
K-pop pedagogy is an operational term that points to a set of practices
and methods of enhancing digital media literacy through the critical analy-
sis of K-pop and its global circulation.1 K-pop is more than a music genre; it
has emerged as a global cultural phenomenon that comprises various compo-
nents, such as digital media, fandom and the media industry. Indeed, the
K-pop phenomenon has been reliant on the South Korean music industry’s
extensive engagement with global digital media platforms, whereby audi-
ences’ participation has been facilitated (Jin et al. 2021). K-pop’s proactive
deployment of digital technologies and literacies has made it an interesting
pedagogical resource, as shown in a few experimental projects (Kim 2017;
Wooten et al. 2020).

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Kyong Yoon

The K-pop phenomenon as a global and digital wave (Jin et al. 2021)
offers an engaging case for learning and teaching how transnational cultural
content is circulated through digital platforms while reaching out to global
audiences. The global–local conjunction through digital platforms has enabled
viral and global flows of K-pop. Teaching and learning digital media through
the analysis of the K-pop phenomenon contributes to critiquing the west-
ern-centric framework of media studies and exploring the meanings of digital
media technology as an environment of pedagogy. Furthermore, K-pop peda-
gogy can help overcome the divide between micro-level cultural analysis (of
cultural texts or audiences) and macro-level political economic analysis.

THE PEDAGOGY OF DE-WESTERNIZED KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

The global rise of K-pop allows us to critically rethink the western-oriented
global mediascape, in which a few major industries have played a predomi-
nant role in terms of market share and cultural influence. The United State
(US) music industry accounts for over 30 per cent of the global music market
in terms of retail value (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
[IFPI] 2020), and US-based digital platforms, such as Google and Facebook,
are increasing their global market dominance, which is referred to as ‘plat-
form imperialism’ (Jin 2013). Moreover, English-language content had long
dominated global music markets until the late-2010s, when an increasing
amount of non-English content began to be circulated through social media;
the number of non-English songs among YouTube’s annual global top 10 hits
has rapidly increased (zero in 2015, one in 2016, six in 2017 and eight in 2018)
(Ingham 2019). Undeniably, the rapidly expanding global K-pop fanbase has
contributed to the de-westernization of popular cultural flows. According to
a global survey conducted in 2020, the fans of the famous K-pop group BTS
(collectively named the ‘ARMY’) are found in more than 100 countries (with
Indonesia, Mexico, the United States, Peru and the Philippines being the five
major fan bases) (ARMY Census 2020). This may signal a new trend of trans-
national cultural flow – that is, from a non-western context to other non-west-
ern contexts and the West – which can be called a ‘contra-flow’ (Thussu 2006).
Learning media studies through this contra-flow genre of K-pop reminds
us that media and cultural studies as a discipline has been dominated by
the process of western-centric knowledge production and has insufficiently
addressed non-western cultural content (Shome 2016). The recent global
circulation of K-pop as cultural content originating from the non-western,
once-peripheral, K-pop media industry calls for an alternative media curric-
ulum that engages with cultural diversity. Media studies has long avoided
‘speaking in subtitles’ (Dwyer 2017) while engaging heavily and exclusively
in western frames of reference. Introducing K-pop as a new subject matter
in a western media studies classroom may give rise to mixed responses, even
including feelings such as discomfort, tension, curiosity, fetishism and igno-
rance. Depending on their subject positions, students may receive the trans-
national flows of K-pop differently. It has been observed that mainstream
(including white) audiences ignore or racialize the K-pop phe­ nomenon,
while some young audiences of colour identify more easily with K-pop idols
and other fans (Yoon 2019). According to empirical studies, overseas audi-
ences’ consumption of K-pop is signified differently depending on their
social contexts. Among young people, K-pop has functioned as a subcultural

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 K-pop pedagogy in the digital platform era

practice through which relations of race, gender and social class are contested 2. As the Korean film
director Bong Joon-Ho
(Min et al. 2019; Yoon 2019). reminded us in his
By encountering the non-western cultural texts and practices of K-pop, interview prior to
students in media studies classrooms can become aware of their intersec- being nominated
for and receiving
tional positions. Furthermore, K-pop’s hybrid textuality, including the mixture Oscars for Parasite,
of different languages and cultural conventions, offers media students oppor- the Academy Awards
tunities to rethink the conventions and definitions of the western-oriented (Oscars) is in reality
supposed to be a ‘very
mainstream media genre. K-pop fans in North American contexts often nego- local’ event despite
tiate the hegemonic, even racist, responses to K-pop, in which the Orientalist its global publicity
and marketing power.
discourse shapes non-western cultural texts as the other of the default media De-westernizing media
setting (Jin et al. 2021). K-pop pedagogy reminds us that although western studies may need to
institutions have played a role as the gatekeeping authority that has intro- begin with moving
away from the myth
duced and evaluated ‘other’ (non-western) cultures for decades, the western that western worlds
media is not the ‘global’ norm but only a local form.2 are the norm and
Examining BTS’s recent rise and its fandom, J. O. Kim (2021: 1072) defined standard and, in so
doing, ‘provincializing’
the BTS phenomenon as a counter-hegemonic cultural practice that ‘brings the West (Chakrabarty
peripheral/non-western actors together and encourages them to identify their 2009).
differences from their core/western counterparts’ (see also Cho 2020). Indeed, 3. While several
the BTS fandom has actively participated in campaigns for social justice and K-pop groups have
incorporated English
social change, as exemplified in their collective engagement with Black Lives into their songs and
Matter movements (2020), anti-Trump campaigns in Tulsa (2020) and anti- BTS recently released
government protests in Santiago, Chile (2019–20) (Cho 2020; Zaveri 2020). entirely English-written
songs, it is noteworthy
In Asia, K-pop has also been used as a counter-hegemonic instrument in that the global K-pop
Bangkok, Hong Kong and Seoul, where anti-government youth sang several phenomenon has
K-pop songs as their protest anthems (Tanakasempipat 2020). The difference dismantled the global
music market, in which
and unfamiliarity of K-pop, especially in comparison to the dominant western the English language
Anglophone music, offer the audience larger room for sociocultural engage- is considered the norm
for market success.
ment. By making an effort to decode the cultural practice of K-pop, which Overseas, K-pop fans
involves cultural and linguistic components that differ from their own, young are reportedly willing
people can learn how to appreciate, use and negotiate cultural differences to to learn Korean or
use peer translations
engage with their own local questions.3 to appreciate and
understand their idols
(Lee 2019). The K-pop
THE PEDAGOGY OF DIGITAL PARTICIPATION LITERACY phenomenon has
demonstrated that the
Another contribution that K-pop pedagogy can make to media studies is its hegemony of English
ability to enable students to engage with participatory culture (Jenkins 2006) in the global media
and advance the critical literacy of digital participation. Digital media technol- market is increasingly
being challenged.
ogy has been considered to facilitate a new type of literacy, referred to as ‘digi- K-pop fans’ willingness
tal participation literacy’, especially among young people (Rheingold 2012). to participate in
According to this thesis, social media and digital platforms allow users to cultural translation
reveals diversified,
develop various media skills, such as curating, editing, remixing and sharing contra-flowing
online content (Jenkins 2006; Jenkins et al. 2013; Rheingold 2012). modes of cultural
globalization.
K-pop encourages students to interpret the text of cultural difference
through networked audiences’ collaboration and participation in digital media
practices. To overcome the cultural and language barriers inscribed in K-pop,
global fans engage extensively with digital media. They share their own inter-
pretations, which often involve the re-contextualization of original texts.
As seen in the user-created videos of dance covers and reactions (to origi-
nal K-pop videos and other fans’ videos), participatory digital production has
been a common fan practice. Shortly after the release of a new K-pop single,
global fans perform the original choreography and record dance covers (with

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Kyong Yoon

lip syncing) at their local go-to places, which range from shopping malls to
their own bedrooms (Liew 2013).
By creating and/or viewing reaction videos, media students can learn how
to decode and evaluate a new K-pop video produced in a different cultural
context. This popular user-generated genre encourages viewers to engage
with other people’s reactions to K-pop (Kim 2015; Swan 2018). This practice
of sharing one’s own reaction with others facilitates the playful processes of
learning and exploring critical media literacy through the consumption (and
production) of pop cultural content. Indeed, K-pop’s reaction video culture
makes space for the audience’s diverse reinterpretation of the original texts
while offering some viewers a sense of comforting universality by enabling
them to appreciate the similarities between their own reactions and those of
other viewers (Anderson 2011). Reaction videos and dance cover videos trig-
ger a domino effect because they invite other reactors and audience members
to respond. This practice highlights the networked nature of popular culture
consumption in the digital platform era (Kim 2021). By viewing, sharing and
analysing fans’ videos filmed in different geocultural contexts, media students
can explore how a media text is resituated and reoriented by participatory
audiences who are seamlessly networked through ubiquitous online media.
Of course, K-pop does not always facilitate participation literacy, with
which cultural difference is acknowledged and potentially evolves as a
counter-hegemonic force. K-pop also reveals the contradictions and limita-
tions of popular culture and digital platforms. It is not simply a signifier of
youthful, participatory, counter-hegemonic cultural movements. K-pop is a
cultural trend that is not free of the commodifying forces of the media indus-
try. Moreover, until recently, the K-pop industry has been ignorant of themes
such as cultural diversity and social equity (Chatman 2020) and has even been
accused of exploiting young musicians to maximize profits (Chung 2019).
For example, several K-pop groups have been criticized for their insensitive
appropriation of other cultures, such as black hip hop music, or their use of
misogynistic or racist language in their song lyrics, interviews and/or social
media postings (Chung 2019). Because of their previous insensitive attitudes
towards cultural diversity and social issues, K-pop artists’ recent engagement
with social justice activities has received cynical responses from some fans and
critics (Chatman 2020).
The K-pop industry’s extensive integration with social media offers another
important aspect of contradiction that is implicated in the transnational circu-
lation of popular culture. Specifically, K-pop is a cultural genre that is highly
dependent on social media, rather than conventional media channels, for its
global dissemination. Social media has played a pivotal role in accelerating
global young people’s participatory consumption of K-pop, which originated
in a non-western country. The fans’ grassroots and interactive online activities,
including collaborative translation, have, in turn, contributed to the develop-
ment of social and digital media. For example, an interactive video content
service called Viki (viki.com) initially emerged as a fan-inspired start-up and
incorporated fans’ labour in the form of translation and comments into its
interactive design (Dwyer 2017). By analysing the K-pop industry’s capitaliza-
tion of fan activities to accelerate the transnational flows of K-pop, we can be
better informed regarding how transnational culture is commodified through
social media platforms.
The commodification of culture, which is one of the key themes of the
political economy of media, is not necessarily unidirectional but, rather,

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 K-pop pedagogy in the digital platform era

involves several interwoven and even contradictory forces. In particular,

K-pop’s participatory fan culture is commodified by the K-pop industry, global
social media platforms and fan audiences. First, the K-pop industry has stra-
tegically explored social media platforms – YouTube and Twitter in particular
– to promote its content and expand its global market. Major K-pop enter-
tainment companies have integrated global talents (producers, composers
and choreographers) into their own ‘in-house’ systems to train and produce
globally appealing idols while widely deploying various social media strate-
gies. Second, global social media platforms, such as YouTube, have accelerated
the commodification of K-pop’s participatory culture. Reaction video vloggers
and cover dancers are increasingly eager to be micro-celebrities or influenc-
ers (Kim 2015). The platform providers’ (e.g. YouTube) monetization of both
K-pop content and its fan activities is potentially detrimental to the K-pop
industry and audience. In particular, the participatory fan may be continuously
interpellated as an ‘audience commodity’, whose attention and data are sold
to advertisers and corporations (Fuchs 2012). Third, in response to the plat-
form-driven attention economy that recognizes dedicated users as ‘influenc-
ers’, some audience members are integrated into the process of commodifying
K-pop. By dedicating their time and labour to promoting not only their K-pop
idols but also their own reaction videos and dance cover videos, the fans have
incorporated their media practices deeply into the attention economy and
thus engaged in the commodification of culture.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, by analysing and participating in the K-pop phenomenon,
media students can critically engage with the dilemmas and negotiation of
transnational cultural flows in the digital platform era. K-pop pedagogy offers
a means of rethinking western-centric knowledge production in media studies
and the global platform-driven commodification of culture. Moreover, K-pop
as a pedagogic resource reveals that the global fans’ grassroots participation
in the K-pop ‘universe’ contributes to the exploration of an alternative cultural
space in which media fan audiences question the existing hegemonic social
order (Jin et al. 2021; Kim 2021; Yoon 2019). Through this cultural phenomenon,
we can identify existing and new problematics in media studies. In particular,
media studies can expand its scope to move beyond its narrow understand-
ing of media technology as an instrument of western-centric globalization
while critically addressing the limitations implicated in the affordances of digi-
tal media. In so doing, K-pop pedagogy can question the utopian discourse
that was pervasive in media studies prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, during
which ‘digital fatigue’ (Alevizou 2020) has been intensively increased.
In response to the question of the use of media and media studies in the
(post-)pandemic era, K-pop as a digital media fan-driven contra-flow provides
leverage for creative and critical thinking. In the abundance and imposition of
technologically mediated communications during the pandemic, K-pop groups
and their fans have maintained their intimate, collaborative spaces through
various social media tools, from YouTube to the Korean-based personal broad-
casting app V-Live. K-pop communities’ transnational digital communications
have contributed to questioning the dominant western-centric gatekeeping of
non-western media forms. In particular, through their creative use of digital
media, BTS and its fans have exemplified how digital media can maximize
its aesthetic, commercial and activist potential. As Cho (2020) noted, BTS’s

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Kyong Yoon

digital media-driven interactions with its fans served to enhance their sense of
belonging and to address structural inequalities and injustice that have been
revealed during the pandemic period. In this way, K-pop pedagogy can show
how media studies engage with the ‘pandemic media’ (media practices that
have emerged during the pandemic period and addressed pandemic-related
issues) and envision the post-pandemic era (Cho 2020).
K-pop pedagogy is a method of teaching and learning digital media
through analysing and participating in the recent transnational and digital
media-driven phenomenon of K-pop and its fandom. This pedagogy provides
a reflection on and antidote to the commodification of culture in the digi-
tal platform era and (post-)pandemic times. During and after the pandemic,
we may witness an increase in the power of digital media platforms. K-pop
pedagogy offers momentum for critical media literacy to penetrate the contra-
diction between digital media platforms and transnational flows of media
culture. By engaging with unfamiliar and non-western cultural content and
practices, students can explore how to reorient the flows and directions of
globalization (Iwabuchi 2002; Jin et al. 2021). By using K-pop as a pedagogi-
cal resource in the digital platform-saturated COVID-19 period, teachers and
learners can critically engage with the potential, limitations and affordances of
digital media and practices.

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SUGGESTED CITATION
Yoon, Kyong (2021), ‘K-pop pedagogy in the digital platform era’, International
Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 17:2, pp. 183–190, https://doi.
org/10.1386/macp_00047_7

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Kyong Yoon is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of British
Columbia Okanagan. His research focuses on digital media, migration and
Korean youth culture. He is the author of Digital Mediascapes of Transnational
Korean Youth Culture (Routledge, 2020) and a co-author of Transnational Hallyu:
The Globalization of Korean Digital and Popular Culture (Rowman & Littlefield,
2021).
Contact: Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, University of British Columbia
Okanagan, 1148 Research Rd, Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada.
E-mail: [email protected]

http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3055-885X
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International licence (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution
and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The
CC BY licence permits commercial and noncommercial reuse. To view a copy of the
licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Kyong Yoon has asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was
submitted to Intellect Ltd.

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