The Sustainability of K-pop in the Digital Era

Written By: Tim Tam Q: 1

For the past few decades, Korea has seen various music trends come and go. The Korean music industry transformed from trot, ballads and dance in the late 1980’s to rock, hip-hop, rap by the turn of the century. Despite the ever-changing genres, some key factors remain the same, namely the control of record label companies, censorship, and lack of freedom for artists. However, I argue that as K-pop enters the digital era, solo and group artists begin playing larger roles as they gain more influence through technology such as streaming platforms and social media. This increased influence can then create financially sustainable careers for the select few artists, such as BTS, who manage to find success in the digital era, despite pressures to conform to the norm.

While companies still control virtually every aspect of an artist’s public life, artists are able to reach out to their fans through social media and streaming platforms such as Instagram and YouTube (Jin 2018, 405). Companies have also recognized the increased use of Internet and capitalized on this opportunity. It reached the point where by 2008, “digital music sales exceeded physical album sales” (Koh 2010, 7) in Korea, making the country the “fourth largest digital market” (Koh 2010, 7).

In this current era, many artists’ careers are financially unsustainable. Even with income from various sources such as royalties, public broadcast, digital streaming, sampling clearance rights, and live performances, performers only get a small share of the profits made from each song. However, increased digital technology has been able to help artists gain more coverage as they are exposed to more and more audiences (Jin 2018, 405). The sustainability of K-pop careers has increased through “the rapid advancement of digital technologies like YouTube which prefers to select and feature perfectly photogenic performers from all over the world, including Korean girl and boy bands,” (Oh 2013, 391). The increased number of outlets for artists has allowed them to stay in the spotlight more, and for longer periods of time.

The instant element of the digital age has proved help improve the conditions of sustainability for artists, however it does have its drawbacks. The constant coverage forces artists to be on guard at all times, often giving up their freedom and favouring censorship in the fear of angering fans and audiences worldwide. In this system, artists are forced to keep the perfect idol image, which enforces conformity to the norm.

However, through carefully executed manoeuvres, some groups have flourished in the digital era, increasing the sustainability of their careers.

Word Count: 423 (including in-text citations), 408 (without)

Bibliography

Jin, Dal Yong. “An Analysis of the Korean Wave as Transnational Popular Culture: North American Youth Engage Through Social Media as TV Becomes Obsolete.” International Journal of Communication 12, no. 5 (2018): 404-422.

Koh, Byungwan. Shift in Demand for Music: Causal Effect of Online Music Piracy and Digital Music on Album. Richardson, TX: University of Texas at Dallas Press, 2010.

Oh, Ingyu. “The Globalization of K-pop: Korea’s Place in the Global Music Industry.” Korea Observer 44, no. 3 (2013): 389-409.