Pop Culture Playful or Pervasive: Annotated Bibliography

Abstract

Hong Kong and Mainland China have had a rather cordial history dating back to 1997, post 150 years of british colonisation. However, in recent times conflicts have emerged due to legislative threats to civil liberties, spiralling the relationship between the two nations into absolute turmoil, creating the worst political crisis since rule. Interestingly, pop culture has surged in relevance, as it has been widely utilised by Hong Kong protesters to convey and fuel their message. Ubiquitous memes engulf social media platforms urging global support for their dilemma. But how influential is pop culture? How powerful can it be to a political motivation, once consumed by the masses? These questions are explored and answered in this paper, specifically investigating Hong Kong pop culture’s pervasive presence and its implications on the China mainland. This paper examines the success of popular culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan, also known as ‘Gangtai’ (a contraction of the Chinese words Xianggang and Taiwan), proliferating and eclipsing over mainland China, in the various forms of film, music and television.

The paper will recognise that Gangtai’s success is greatly contributed by the influence of western nations, shaping its pop culture to a hybrid east west powerhouse. Television networks such as Hong Kong’s TVB occupies 80% of the market share, exemplifying its national influence, however more critically is internationally renowned and viewed, especially in China. This form of soft power prevalent in a hegemonic state raises concerns, whereby institutions like the Frankfurt School will question the consumption of pop culture as a means of appeasing to the masses. However rebutting scholars like Henry Jenkins will argue a more civil bridging of boundaries, correlating to my argument.

Because of Hong Kong’s history, it is apparent that they lack the hard power of the China mainland, however with its circulating pop culture, they remain relevant and possess a global voice. As a more multicultural international community with a booming economy, Hong Kong reserves the ability to capitalise on transnationalism and diversify the landscape of Asian pop culture. Spurring this, the diffusing of social media mediums further promotes the Gangtai giving access to an international platform. This will be further developed in the paper by exploring the vast outreach of Korean pop culture through the Korean Wave that’s proliferated by social media advertisement.

Being a major influencer in the production of China’s pop culture, I will argue that the consumption of Asian popular culture empowers the producer and though it doesn’t present itself as emancipatory, neither does it constitute as a subversive hegemony.

Annotated Bibliography 1

• Title: Go with Your Feelings: Hong Kong and Taiwan Popular Culture in Greater China
• Author: Thomas B. Gold
• Source: The China Quarterly, No. 136, Special Issue: Greater China
• Date: Dec., 1993

In this article, Gold explores the growing reception of pop culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan (collectively renamed Gangtai) in mainland China through a socio-political scope. Gold is Professor of Sociology at the University of California exploring the dichotomy of mainland China’s hard power and Gangtai’s soft power, by analysing growing trends of Gangtai on centralised China and the consequences pertaining to said growth. Gold asserts that Gangtai possesses such significant influence over mainland China’s cultural and social landscape that it could potentially challenge the hegemonic power of China. However, though he alludes to a potential cultural hegemony, he insists that the reception of Gangtai in mainland China is best described as one that is ‘negotiated’, whereby it is neither hegemonic or emancipatory, but rather balanced in between. Though written over three decades ago against a different global context, the central ideas are still useful for my argument against the Frankfurt School’s assertion that pop culture is merely a product of the mainstream elite to pacify the masses. The article also provides additional context as it touches on the interplay of cultural soft power on a hegemonic state. Prevalent limitations in this article are the inherent conjectures in his argument, which presents bias to the discourse. Therefore it must be established that the article is rather speculative in exploring why there is a growing trend in pop culture in China, however it does confer valuable insight into the interrelationship of the role of the consumer and audience of cultural power. Gold’s ‘negotiated’ reception of Gangtai is an important notion which will be further researched and explored in my essay. (273 words)

Annotated Bibliography 2

• Title: An Analysis of the Korean Wave as Transnational Popular Culture: North American Youth Engage Through Social Media as TV Becomes Obsolete
• Author: Dal Yong Jin
• Source: International Journal of Communication 12: 404-422.
• Date: 2018

In this article, Dal discusses the consumption of Korean pop culture in North America, as catalysed by social media. Dal Yong Jin is a South Korean born media studies scholar teaching and researching at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. As part of his research, he conducted several in depth interviews with k-pop fans in North America to analyse recent developments characterising the Korean Wave (growing k-pop fandom). His research argues that the transnational cultural phenomenon in Korean pop culture, Hallyu, is greatly attributed to the growing landscape of social media and the changing media consumption in North America. Dal elaborates that changing media technologies have broadened the scope of content delivery mediums to younger generations, as a result, propelling the global status and platform of pop culture movements such as Hallyu, in return building better national relations. This article will be critical in developing a refined understanding of how Asian pop culture is currently consumed and to what degree its global outreach is on its youth audiences. Though relatively reliable tests were conducted, the data collected was accrued selectively in a controlled demographic, and thus limits the validity of results from a global purview. However, Dal’s content on social media’s propulsion of Korean pop culture on North America’s younger generations, serves as an integral foundation to my analysis of the processes and influences of consumption. Additional research will be required to explore the impacts in other regions. Nonetheless, Dal’s regional case study provides valuable insight to transnationalism between South Korea and North America. It also supports Jenkins assertion that Asian pop culture is a means of subverting boundaries, and thus will be used as supplementary information. (275 words)