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- Title
Mass Media Technologies and Popular Music Genres: K-pop and YouTube.
- Authors
Ingyu OH; Hyo-Jung LEE
- Abstract
Sociological studies of the music industry emphasize the importance of mass media technologies in the birth of a new popular music genre. However, these studies have not fully explained the business structure of new media and new popular music. They also failed to predict K-pop's global success via YouTube and iTunes. The emergence of Internet-based music stores and music video streaming sites, particularly YouTube, has a strong connection to Korean content as it allows Korean artists to bypass conventional music distributors who control business-to-customer music distribution channels in the United States and Europe. The emergence of the digital economy powered by PCs and smartphones, ushered in a new era of business-to-business music distribution, thus minimizing transaction costs of the global music business for Korean entertainment firms. This article argues that K-pop producers, with no alternative channels for distributing their music to global audiences for profit, actively chose YouTube for its free music distribution despite its low-profit margins from royalty fees. J-pop and American pop music distributors, however, avoided YouTube because the profit margin from YouTube was far lower than from traditional media, such as CDs and iTunes, giving K-pop primary standing in the niche market.
- Subjects
KOREAN pop music; MUSIC &; the Internet; YOUTUBE (Web resource); ITUNES (Digital music program); VIDEO downloading (Computers); MUSIC downloading (Computers); ONLINE social networks; MARKET segmentation
- Publication
Korea Journal, 2013, Vol 53, Issue 4, p34
- ISSN
0023-3900
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.25024/kj.2013.53.4.34