Mass Media Technologies and Popular Music Genres: K-pop and YouTube
- Authors
- Oh, Ingyu; Lee, Hyo-Jung
- Issue Date
- 2013
- Publisher
- KOREAN NATL COMMISSION UNESCO
- Keywords
- K-pop; music industry; technology; media; YouTube; iTunes; SNS
- Citation
- KOREA JOURNAL, v.53, no.4, pp.34 - 58
- Indexed
- AHCI
SCOPUS
KCI
- Journal Title
- KOREA JOURNAL
- Volume
- 53
- Number
- 4
- Start Page
- 34
- End Page
- 58
- URI
- https://scholar.korea.ac.kr/handle/2021.sw.korea/106388
- ISSN
- 0023-3900
- Abstract
- Sociological studies of the music industry emphasize the importance of mass media technologies in the birth of a new popular music genre. However, these studies have not fully explained the business structure of new media and new popular music. They also failed to predict K-pop's global success via YouTube and iTunes. The emergence of Internet-based music stores and music video streaming sites, particularly YouTube, has a strong connection to Korean content as it allows Korean artists to bypass conventional music distributors who control business-to-customer music distribution channels in the United States and Europe. The emergence of the digital economy powered by PCs and smartphones, ushered in a new era of business-to-business music distribution, thus minimizing transaction costs of the global music business for Korean entertainment firms. This article argues that K-pop producers, with no alternative channels for distributing their music to global audiences for profit, actively chose YouTube for its free music distribution despite its low-profit margins from royalty fees. I-pop and American pop music distributors, however, avoided You Tube because the profit margin from YouTube was far lower than from traditional media, such as CDs and iTunes, giving K-pop primary standing in the niche market.
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Collections - Associate Research Center > Research Institute of Korean Studies > 1. Journal Articles
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