The Cultural Politics of Transmedia Storytelling in K-Pop

Foregrounding the ways in which stories are created and circulated across media forms and cultures, this volume approaches K-pop as a narrative system rather than a discrete musical genre. Contributors demonstrate how transmedia storytelling functions as a central mechanism through which cultural politics of meaning, identity, and power are produced, managed, and contested.

An international and interdisciplinary roster of contributors employ case studies examining a number of artists including BTS, Taemin, Sunmi, and KARD, among others, with topics ranging from idol universes and solo projects to fandom labor and scandal. These varied cases demonstrate how questions of race, gender, sexuality, nationalism, and labor are embedded within the everyday mechanics of storytelling itself. The practices of transmedia world building around K-pop idols – through which both controversy and solidarity can shape discourses around idols and their careers – are re-understood as elements that can threaten to break the illusion of community.

Ultimately, this volume situates K-pop within broader debates about transmedia power, affective circulation, and global popular culture, highlighting how storytelling operates as a site of ongoing negotiation in which visibility, value, and belonging are continually reworked and redefined.