텔레비전 드라마와 한류 담론- 한류 진화론과 위기론에 대한 비판적 고찰을 중심으로

Abstract

Korean wave is a coinage that represents strong cultural desire of Korea in the 21st century. The Significance that external factors give to a series of Korean pop culture during late 1990s has expanded to even more various Signifies up to these days largely owing to renewal taking place from the inner part. The enthusiasm for Modern/Korea/Pop/Culture, which is the fruit of studying Western pop culture, in both Eastern and Western countries was unexpected. That has led the Korean Wave to review characteristics of its contents as the 'sender' of the place of dispatch, and, in the mean time, also led to more active observation and analysis on the recipient of the place of reception. However, such cultural empirical experience that Korea has never been though in its history has led Korean society to blindness. The Evolution theory and the Crisis theory, which have been raised around the Korean wave throughout the society in recent times, are classic examples of 'blindness'. The tight coexistence of the Evolution theory and the Crisis theory is significantly meaningful. According to the Evolution theory, the Korean wave, which was originated from TV dramas and K-pop in late 1990s, has now been significantly upgraded to 3.0 or even 4.0 versions. On the other hand, the Crisis theory expresses concerns that the Korean wave would only last for a short duration, and thus encourages some changes to occur. The coexistence of these two theories is a testimonial to the absolute power of the Korean wave in its society. In other words, the Korean wave could function as a categorical imperative in Korean society. However, the recent studies on the recipient and the place of reception of the Korean Wave explicitly reveal illusion of the Korean wave as a categorical imperative. The Korean wave is not a dominant or exclusive cultural content in the global culture market where a wide range of different cultures and different tastes interact. Instead, it is simply a 'spotlighted' cultural flow in the present time just like some other cultures from different countries and ethnicities were in the past. The discourse on the Korean wave now demands a different approach from the existing theories including the Evolution theory and the Crisis theory. The discourse on the Korean wave has been sunk in a unilateral relationship between Korea being the sender of the place of dispatch and the Western being the recipient of the place of reception. However, the fact that Pop culture in the 21st century is no longer bound to be an exclusive content for a certain nation, but is transnational, should not be disregarded. The discourse on the Korean Wave should move on to focusing a wider range of objects and categories from now on rather than its narrow scope in the past. This is to study the Korean wave as a stream of trans-culture, whereby cultural exchange occurs interactively, thereby revising the conventional 'culturally closed' view of the Korean wave as a mechanical process of production and consumption of cultural materials.