Korean Wave and Korean Women Television Viewers in Singapore

AbstractAbstractAgainst the backdrop of cultural globalization and regionalization, this study theorizes on transnational television consumption and cultural flows within Asia by examining the ways in which women of the Korean diaspora enjoy homeland television drama while living in Singapore. It was found that Korean drama viewing provides these women with cultural resources to resist male dominance. In a word, they acquire semiotic power to produce resistive reading from the resources of the text. The Korean Wave phenomenon plays an interesting role in this. Moving the cultural industries' position upward in the Korean economy has allowed the expertise about Korean television drama to function as means of empowering women in familial power relations. It has also heightened their ethnic pride in their relations with other Asians. Articulated in these contexts, the Korean Wave produces new meanings and serves new cultural interests for women.