The K-pop Factory Phenomenon

Across the global music industry and the popular media, “K-pop” is both a buzzword and soft-power concept that encapsulates the astounding success currently enjoyed by Korean cultural contents, in terms of both production and export values. Despite creative input from a variety of international contributors, the meteoric rise of K-pop was not anticipated by most global music industry players.In addition, by circumventing the barriers to entry (and costs) associated with traditional media production and distribution channels dominated by a few major global players, successfully exploiting the promotional space offered by YouTube, and being an early adopter of this new commercial phenomenon, the K-pop industry has become a world leader in an intensely competitive field.