What’s the influence of Korean Wave in China? Research Paper

What’s the Influence of Korean Wave in China?
Northeast Asia has grown greatly in terms of an unprecedented cultural phenomenon that provides impact on the whole region – “Hallyu” since the 20th century. This Chinese term means Korean wave, is about the love of the cultural economy in Korea, exporting entertainment, movies, TV dramas, music, and even pop culture.
Korea has been setting a dedicated goal to become the leading provider of famous culture all over the world. It is Korea’s way to expand its “soft power”.1 Soft power means that the country of Korea was able to gain its popularity through its image, and not through hard force. In addition, Korean wave has become one of the greatest and fast-paced phenomena all over Asia in terms of culture. Korean wave has been dealing tremendous effect to other countries in the continent and outside the continent, and it boosts the economy of Korea. This makes Korean become futuristic and rich.
Introduction of Reality Shows in the Chinese Market
Before reality shows are introduced in the Chinese media industry, one critical problem in the TV industry of China was lacking of programming variety, and this has led mainly from a lack of producers for original TV programs. There are media scholars who warned TV producers that if they would not be able to move quickly on exploring the original and catchy media market soon enough, many of their viewers will see entertainment on other aspects, most likely on the World Wide Web. This gives them more options for more Western and Asian companies. The result is that Chinese producers and the country itself was becoming more open to the World Trade Organization and international entry, more particularly the Korean Wave. This is when China’s television entertainment market started facing many new opportunities, and entered the format business internationally.
China had a chance to watch reality TV shows in year 2000, which has become a new genre of TV program for them. During those times, Chinese TV stations has bought the content of famous reality shows from foreign countries and aired them nationally. Because of that, China has started entering the format business with international contents; and they started producing original variety shows. “Super Girl”, a Chinese variety show introduced in year 2004, got remarkable attention and great popularity in the Mainland China, and media professionals in the country started finding the potential of reality shows and international Korean market in China. This had sped up the introduction of variety shows all over the world. However, because it lacked originality, few years after it was aired, Chinese media started to partner with international shows and air them in TV stations to be able to attract Chinese viewers. As the international market became saturated, media started to pay attention to the variety shows of South Korea because of their advanced techniques in producing shows, established market strategies, and related cultural elements. Because of the rapid introduction of Korean wave in China, both countries have established official relations and developed in trade, tourism, economy, personnel exchanges, and investment. Cultural exch...