popular culture
Takeshi Matsui’s new article, "Nation Branding through Stigmatized Popular Culture: The Cool Japan Craze Among Central Ministries in Japan", has recently been published in Hitotsubashi Journal of Commerce and Management. This article explains how various Japanese ministries are competing to promote “Cool Japan” and make Japanese “content industry” more attractive in order to enhance Japanʼs soft power.
Ask someone in Southeast Asia what comes to mind when you mention "Korea," and the answer is more than likely to be the "Korean Wave." (...) The first ladies of the ASEAN member nations got a look at the place where the wave originated during this week's Korea-ASEAN Summit.
The hallyu – or “Korean wave” as the phenomenon is known in Asia – is now spreading to Europe and the US, and spurring South Korea’s export earnings. Cultural exports are...giving the once reclusive country a global cachet for the first time, shaking off the war-torn images of the US comedy M*A*S*H.
As the world becomes more and more "flat," per se, exchanges and communications become astonishingly bidirectional. And hybrid products are born through this bidirectional "flattening," process as you easily find in all manufactured and cultural products. Korean entertainment producers are smart enough to know how to blend ingredients for universal attraction...Therefore, pop culture is speedily eroding boundaries of nations, as any multinational companies do.