Critical Approaches to Transmedia Storytelling in K-Pop

In Critical Approaches to Transmedia Storytelling in K-Pop, contributors present a variety of compelling case studies to argue that K-pop has evolved beyond a musical genre into a global cultural phenomenon with a growing influence on contemporary media practices, highlighting its transmedia ecosystem in which complex narratives unfold and engage audiences across formats and platforms.

An impressive roster of contributors assembled by editor Nicholas E. Miller explore how different artists and companies within the industry have constructed expansive storyworlds through a variety of media to draw fans into participatory, interpretive engagement. These analyses cohere to demonstrate how the narrative universes of K-pop have transformed cultural boundaries, industry economics, and global fan culture by strategically employing non-traditional elements and technologies that establish collaborative meaning-making and emotional investment as the basis of compelling fan experiences. As a result, this volume positions K-pop’s transmedial approach as not merely a marketing strategy, but as a sophisticated artistic framework which redefines the relationship between music, narrative, and performance in the digital age.

Source: publisher’s website

Table of Contents

Introduction | Nicholas E. Miller

Allusive Storytelling and Transtextual Strategies

1. Generative Unruliness: World-Becoming and the Transmedia Logic of K-Pop in the Billlieverse | Nicholas E. Miller
2. Recursive Transmedia and the Eternal Return in BTS’s Bangtan Universe | Courtney Lazore
3. The Role of the (Un)Knowing Audience in Transmedia Storytelling: Why Seventeen’s “Son Ogong” Should Not Be Called “Super” but “Monkey King” in English | CedarBough T. Saeji and Barbara Wall
4. Something Borrowed: Classical Music Excerpts as Intertextual Interventions in K-Pop Restaging | Netta Huebscher

Semiotic Ecosystems and Narrative Multiplicity

5. Cracks in the Universal: Local Media Practices and the Limits of Transmedia Universality in K-Pop | Olga V. Lazareva
6. Transmedia Storytelling and the Artwork Dispersed: Reviewing the Semiotic Constitution of NCT 127’s Cherry Bomb | Lila S. Roussel
7. Breaking the Linear Timeline: ATEEZ’s Möbius Strip Storytelling Across Media and Meaning | Agnese Dionisio
8. Authenticity as Storytelling: Self-Production and the Transmedia Storyworld of Stray Kids | Arpita Kar

Digital Architectures and Participatory Design

9. “Next Level”: aespa’s Storyworld and Cultural Significance | Wonseok Lee
10. SYNK Dive into “KWANGYA”: Transmedia Storytelling and Emerging Technologies in K-Pop | Qingyue Sun
11. (My) BTS Universe Story: Sanctioned and Unsanctioned Transmedia Immersion in BTS Universe Story | Kathryn M. Frank