The History of Korean Popular Culture

This book is a seminal example of historical writing on Korean popular culture, based on solid data that integrates historical facts and cultural symbols within a broader analytical framework, offering insightful critical interpretation. It explores the history of Korean popular culture that has grown and developed on the foundation of modern history. The history of popular culture is not just the history of subgenres such as film, popular music, and television; it is intertwined with various cultural texts and authors that represent the era, issues of production and consumption, industry and markets, institutions and politics, ideological domination and resistance, technology and media, generational conflicts and differences, and the everyday lives and emotions of the public.

Source: publisher’s website

Contents

1. Japanese Occupation: The Introduction of Mass Media and the Growth of Consumer Culture
2. Division, War, and Postwar Turmoil, 1945–1950s
3. The Park Chung Hee Regime, 1960s and Early 1970s: The Sensitivities of Developmental Dictatorship
4. The Later Park Chung Hee Era, 1970s: Everyday Oppression and Cultural Control
5. The Age of Confrontation and Conflict, 1980s
6. New Generation Culture and Consumerism, 1990s
7. Life and Culture in the Digital Age, 2000s and Beyond