지속가능한 한류를 위한 문화콘텐츠 전략 — K-Comics의 사례를 중심으로

Abstract

Most of the previous researches on the Korean Wave so far tended to focus on the killer contents which made huge success on the basis of low cultural discount, globalization, or glocalization. However, highly sustainable genres shall be identified and nurtured in the era of Korean Wave 3.0 where the Korean Wave is being diversified. This study paid attention to organic links established in the production, distribution, and consumption of contents, and argued that media literacy, establishment of an ecosystem in culture industry, continuous enjoyment and consumption as well as participatory immersion, and materialization of cultural glocalization would be necessary. This paper aims at finding such sustainable growth based on the analysis on the growth engines of the Korean Wave, focusing on the features and success patterns of steady-selling contents resulted from the case studies from K-Comics. With regard to K-Comics, this study focused on the successful transition from comics to webtoons by overcoming the generic limits. Webtoons maximized the creative effects by adapting to the new way of reading optimized to new media such as the Internet portals and smart phones and the new way of production. Furthermore, K-Comics have developed into a new genre thanks to the well-developed Internet infrastructure and high penetration rate of smart phones in Korea. K-Comics could be the steady-selling contents when the following conditions are satisfied; ecosystem of webtoon platforms should be formed; profit structure of Korean webtoons should be diversified; generalized and familiar materials should be reproduced in comics by pursuing the cultural glocalization to facilitate the production of cultural derivatives; a glocalization model maximizing the media-appropriateness should be created; an ecosystem optimized to SNS capable of inviting immediate reactions from the public with its interactive communication structure should be prepared; and a participatory immersion enabling interactive communication with relevant marketing strategies should be conducted. New type of cultural glocalization capable of maintaining local uniqueness and sharing the universal value simultaneously is necessary to materialize the sustainable Korean Wave 3.0. based on such foundation.