Cultural Policies in the Era of the Korean Wave explores how the state instrumentalises cultural industries, despite the bulk of their production and delivery mechanisms becoming subject to the market logic and foreign stakeholders, through an in-depth study of the South Korean government’s cultural industry policies.

Drawing on interviews with policymakers and producers in the Korean film, music, and television industries, it investigates how the government’s policy schemes—ranging from funding programmes and public agencies established to promote cultural industries to the blacklisting of those opposing the administration’s political agendas—demonstrate the government’s strong desire to influence cultural production. The findings highlight how the state retains political power to instrumentalise cultural products, even as market forces shape production mechanisms and genre characteristics that have become increasingly transnational.

This book sheds new light on how the state approves and reappropriates the doctrines of neoliberal globalisation to serve its interests in instrumentalising culture, making it relevant for scholars and students in the areas of media and cultural policy, media and cultural industries, global media, and Asian studies.