Cultural Policies in the Era of the Korean Wave explores how the state instrumentalises cultural industries, despite the bulk of their production and delivery mechanisms becoming subject to the market logic and foreign stakeholders, through an in-depth study of the South Korean government’s cultural industry policies.

Drawing on interviews with policymakers and producers who work in the Korean film, music, and television industries, it investigates how the government’s policy schemes—from funding programmes and public agencies which are established to promote the cultural industries to the blacklisting of those who stand against the administration’s political agendas—show the government’s strong willingness to influence cultural production. The findings explain how the state still retains political power to instrumentalise cultural products even as the market drives production mechanisms and genre characteristics that have become increasingly transnational.

Shedding new light on how the state approves and reappropriates the doctrines of neoliberal globalisation to serve its interests in instrumentalising culture, this book will interest scholars and students in the areas of media and cultural policy, media and cultural industries, global media, and Asian studies.