Re-Imagining a cosmopolitan ‘Asian us’: Korean media flows and imaginaries of Asian modern femininities

Abstract

This chapter provides a comparative analysis of the meaning-making activities of Hong Kong and Singaporean female audiences of Korean TV dramas. It finds that these audiences are adept in using Korean dramas to construct and confirm their own multiple, at times conflicting, subjectivities, which seem to be rooted concurrently in “tradition” and “modernity”, to negotiate everyday life tensions and dilemmas experienced in contemporary urban living, and to construct what they see as their distinctive “Asian” modern femininities. It starts by summarizing some of the major studies on Korean media flows, particularly the consumption of Korean TV dramas. The audience studies of Korean drama fans in Hong Kong and Singapore are explained. In addition, it describes the imaginaries of “Asian” modern femininities that seem to be emerging from these women's drama consumption practices. Moreover, it covers both potential uses and dangers of the “Asian values” discourse when women located in different Asian societies tries to imagine and negotiate their own ways of being modern women in Asia.