New wave of pop culture redefines Korea
By Andrew Salmon
Contributing writer
In 1990, the American academic Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power.” This referred to nations winning friends and influencing people through the attraction of their values, culture, institutions and policies, as opposed to “hard power,” based on coercion and payment. At the heart of soft power is the assumption that other people “want what you want.”
This theory rationalized much of what the United States already offered, disseminated and lived up to ― or, at least, attempted to live up to: values such as political freedom, liberal democracy and free market economics. While these values could be disseminated by policies and institutions, it is, arguably, the US entertainment industry that has done most to disseminate the “American dream” globally.
A Changing Korea
“Soft power” challenged Korea’s traditional development paradigm. From the 1960s, authoritarian governments had placed absolute primacy on economic growth. Social and political development was de-prioritized as the entire nation was hitched to an economic locomot
Jul 5, 2010
