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Production Culture in a Networked Era: The Rise of Korean Web Dramas
Kim, Soo Hyung
Kim, Soo Hyung
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2025-08
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Media & Communication
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https://doi.org/10.34944/ks28-6617
Abstract
This dissertation research explores the evolving production culture of Korean web dramas through a production studies lens, focusing on how and why this unique media form has emerged and transformed in the context of global digital media shifts. This research examines how two forces that permeate Korean production culture—the Korean Wave and the rise of global streaming platforms, such as Netflix—have impacted the Korean media industry and the production culture of web dramas that emerged and developed within these dynamics. It assumes this as a complex space where innovation, constraints, and negotiations among various constituents surrounding web dramas are intertwined, focusing on the process and conditions of their cultural production and practice. Through ethnographic fieldwork at two production sites and interviews with 30 industry professionals, this study examines how cultural practices, aesthetic decisions, and notions of imagined audiences influence the production culture of web dramas in a rapidly evolving industry environment. This dissertation posits that web dramas represent a distinct genre and art form while simultaneously serving as a complex nexus where industrial, cultural, economic, aesthetic, and individual interests struggle over the construction of what we see and hear in web dramas, negotiating each party’s own understanding of the imagined audience.
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