Netflix and Korean Original Series: Global and Local Impacts in the Future
The event is sponsored by Ellen and Robert Kaplan.
Thursday, October 12, 2023
4pm – 5:30pm EST
The Mandel Forum, located on the first floor of the Mandel Center for the Humanities
About the event
Korean TV shows and movies have grown in popularity globally in recent years, from the hugely successful Squid Game series to All of Us Are Dead. Have you ever stopped to wonder why?
Professor Heejung Jo from Claflin University will present extensively how complex Korean media structures have gained a foothold in international media circles, and how power relations have been directed to open doors for Korean productions to be shown on contested TV streaming platforms such as Netflix.
During this lecture, Professor Gu will highlight how streaming giant Netflix has established a transnational media and production strategy to bring foreign TV shows/movies into American living rooms.
About the speaker
Heejung Joo is a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Claflin University, a liberal arts university in South Carolina. She was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea (later Korea) until she came to the United States to attend the doctoral program in communications at the University of Oklahoma, Norman. She has studied media, journalism, and communications extensively and earned her bachelor’s degree at Dongguk University and master’s degree at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea.
Dr. Gu has researched the production and distribution of transnational media content and audiences’ consumption experiences of this content across various digital media. More specifically, she studies the increasing transnational media practices, their flows, and their impacts on non-Western media and their content. Recently, her research has blossomed into Korean media collaborations with Netflix and other global streaming players (Disney+ and Apple TV), an evolving trend that continues in global media contexts. This line of research contributes to enriching the societal and industrial values of many types of globalization studies. Dr. Gu’s work calls for a critical approach to a changing phase of transnational mobility of local/national media and more near-global mobility alongside evolving digital media and diverse transnational audience cultures.
Years ago, I published articles in many media and communication magazines, such as:
Journal of International and Cultural Communication
Critical Studies in Television (in press)
Related: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies
International Communications Journal
Communication, culture and criticism
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication
Creative Communications Magazine
Asian women
In 2020, she published her book Transnational Korean Television: Cultural Storytelling and Digital Audiences. It has presented the content and industries of globalized Korean television and is considered the first scholarly book to introduce and provide critical media analyzes on the cross-border effects of Korean television. In collaboration, Dr. Jo has produced several book chapters on Korean popular culture and non-Western media. For example, the chapter on the Korean Wave edition: Korean Popular Culture in Global Context (2014), and another article on the soft power of the Korean Wave: Parasite, BTS, and Drama (2021).
