K-culture is now enjoying its greatest heyday. Once perceived as a regional culture on the periphery of Asia, K-culture has risen to become a leading player on the global stage, with diverse content winning love from people worldwide alongside the explosive growth of K-pop, dramas and films. But there are also loud voices warning that this is no time to be intoxicated by the dazzling success story of K-culture. The argument is that for K-culture to achieve sustainable growth in a global market of infinite competition, it must resolve the many challenges hidden in the shadows of its glittering success and prepare the momentum for another leap.
In an interview with the Seoul Economic Daily on Monday, Yang Hyun-mi, a professor of culture and arts management at Sangmyung University, said: "K-culture has gone beyond the success of individual content such as K-pop and dramas to achieve a major leap, to the point where the Korean way of life is enjoyed as a shared culture across the world." She added, "Now is an urgent time to transform this success of K-culture into a sustainable system so that it does not end as a passing fad."
Yang stressed, "K-culture's achievements so far have been based on outstanding stars like the group BTS and private-sector creativity, but for an even greater leap, we must focus on creating the soil that can sustain this success structurally." She continued, "K-content has become a proven asset in the global market, but the problem of concentration in specific trends and genres is also growing. We must broaden genres while working to secure intellectual property (IP) sovereignty, and at the same time diversify the consumption regions and distribution channels for K-content."
- The standing of "K-culture" in the world has changed beyond recognition.
△It is remarkable growth. Until just a few years ago, K-culture carried the label of belonging to a particular group of enthusiasts, but now it stands at the center of the global mainstream stage. The characteristics of today's K-culture can be condensed into three points. The first is "entry from the periphery into the mainstream," and the second is "expansion from K-content to K-culture." Beyond the success of individual "content" such as K-pop, dramas and films, the entire Korean way of life is now being consumed as a single "culture." Another major change is the global localization from "Made in Korea" to "Made with Korea." Whereas the Korean Wave of the past was a method of exporting finished products made in Korea, it has now evolved into a stage of collaboration and co-creation, combining with global capital, talent and platforms to create together.
- What would you cite as the driving force behind K-culture's leap?
△It is the result of three elements coming together in harmony: "private-sector creativity," "the government's environment-building" and "global fandom." The abolition of prior censorship in the 1990s opened up freedom of creation, world-class digital and telecommunications infrastructure was laid, and agencies and production companies took risks early on by targeting overseas markets. On top of this, the government steadily supported the institutional foundation through the establishment of the Korea Creative Content Agency, funds and talent development. This collaboration among the private sector, government and fandom led K-culture's leap.
- K-content is drawing attention, but there are also concerns about "concentration in global OTT" and "trend concentration."
△Since "Squid Game," K-content has become a proven asset in the global market. The problem is that its success is a double-edged sword. The biggest problem is the structural concentration in global over-the-top (OTT) services such as Netflix. When core IP becomes dependent on global platforms, even if a work is a hit, the rights and the fruits of secondary use leave our hands. The flood of works with similar grammar in genres with proven box-office formulas, such as survival and thriller, is also a task that needs improvement. While advantageous for short-term hits, it brings viewer fatigue and ultimately erodes the diversity and originality that are the lifeblood of K-content.
- What efforts are needed for diversity?
△Above all, "expanding the content territory" is urgent. First, we must broaden the "territory of genres." We need to expand the portfolio beyond a drama-centered focus to documentaries, animation and non-genre experiments. Expanding the "territory of rights" is also important. We must increase support on the condition that homegrown OTTs or production companies co-own the IP, and institutionalize measures that impose obligations on global platforms to invest in and distribute domestic content, as in Europe. We must also broaden the territory of the market. To reduce dependence on specific regions, we need to diversify distribution channels into Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
- The platform sector is often pointed to as a weakness of our content industry.
△We are a content powerhouse, but unfortunately not a platform powerhouse. Last year, Korea's knowledge service trade balance recorded a deficit of about $10.2 billion, but the area where the deficit occurred was not "content creation" but the "platform distribution" area. However, we must actively leverage the strong competitiveness of the content itself. What deserves attention is the "backward effect" of K-content. The real value of K-content lies not in the content export figures themselves but in the consumer goods and tourism it draws in. We need to invest more in content production competitiveness to grow the backward effect.
- The influence of the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is growing in the cultural sector as well.
△The government is providing various forms of support for the use of AI in the content sector, but the real task lies in people and data rather than money. Not only academies that cultivate field practitioners, but also AI convergence education at the higher education level such as universities, must be quickly established so that better talent is steadily produced. What matters most is data. Securing our own cultural data in high quality and opening the way for it to be used legally is the foundation for creating AI worthy of K-content. In the end, the success or failure of the AI transition depends on how we drive "people, data and the field" together.
- K-culture is enjoying its heyday, but there are also warnings of crisis.
△Local cultures that once captivated the world, such as J-pop and Hong Kong noir films, failed to show sustainability. Hong Kong films captivated the world in the 1980s and 1990s but grew stale by pouring out films with similar formulas, and collapsed without having built an industrial system to nurture the next generation. J-pop shows another path. J-pop, which once flourished, declined within a culture that settled into a huge domestic market and avoided competition. While the world moved to streaming and YouTube, it clung to closed distribution methods and became isolated like the "Galápagos." If you become intoxicated by comfortable growth and grow insensitive to changes outside, you drift away from the global stage. We must be wary of repeating box-office formulas and constantly attempt diversity and novelty. We must also steadily invest in the next generation of creators and systems rather than relying on today's stars.
- The cultural industry has grown greatly, but its share of our economy is still limited.
△Content's share of Korea's total exports is very small compared to semiconductors or automobiles. But if you look only at the numbers and say "the share is small, so the priority is low," you miss the essence. The real power of the cultural industry lies not in the direct sales recorded in the ledger, but in the ripple effect and intangible value as it spreads into cosmetics, tourism and the national brand.
- Do you mean that invisible value must be converted into tangible value?
△We must focus on how to capture content's "invisible value" and make it our own. First, we need a framework that evaluates the industry's contribution including the backward effect and national brand value. Next is the effort to find IP sovereignty. We need an "IP sovereignty fund" that supports projects in which production companies hold a certain share or more, along with support for securing overseas IP. Only when there is a sophisticated design to "internalize" hits into added value for our economy can the cultural industry's share and role in our economy grow.
- K-pop has risen to the top of the global stage, but various problems are also pointed out.
△K-pop has become a cultural phenomenon that commands a powerful economy called fandom, beyond an industry that sells albums. But for a leap forward, a shift from quantity to quality is needed. We need diversification that broadens revenue sources into performances, content, goods and IP, moving away from quantitative growth such as album push-selling. We must also not turn away from sustainability issues such as the excessive labor and human rights of trainees and the environmental burden caused by album overproduction. For K-pop not to end as a single generation's craze, rather than consuming quickly and discarding
