A book about Korean pop culture by Mark Russel; Pop Goes Korea : Behind the Revolution in Movies, Music, and Internet Culture (Stone Bridge Press (January 1, 2009).

Contents

Introduction

Korean History: A Primer / Modern Pop Culture / A Note on Korean Language / Acknowledgement

1. The Deal
Saving the Cinema / CJ Entertainment / A Per-History / The Foundation / Making Movies / The Rise of the Multiplex

2. The Blockbuster
Getting Started / First Steps / A Commercial Revolution / Just a Fluke? / Building a Bigger / Blockbuster / A Culture of Hits

3. The Film Festival
Preceding PIFF / Finding a Patron / The First PIFF / From Film Fans to Film Making

4. The Actor and the TV drama
French, Religion, and Other Whims / Making Airwaves-TV Begins in Korea / Trying Out / Out of the Flying Pam / Stepping Up

5. The Music Mogul
Schoolhouse Rock / Living in America / Prelude to a Revolution / The Rise of SM Entertainment

6. The Music Thieve
Cyber Simmering / Let the Sea Make a Noise / Free as a Bird / Going Legit

7. Thin Black Line
Early Cartoons / The Modern Comic Book Era / The Animation Divide / Comic in Internet Age / Artistic License

Conclusion
Waving Goodbye / Pop Goes the World

Index

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Although the book is not academic in a narrow sense and the parts about pop music is about two or so, you can get rich information about what is going on Korean cultural industries. A review of the book by the publisher is here, where an interesting remarkis found: “It avoids two dangers:  it does not follow tabloid rumor mills, and it also avoids the impenetrable jargon that has come to dominate ‘culture studies.’  This is a book one can read with great interest.”

About the author’s blog, http://www.koreapopwars.com/.

(Joon/Sjon)