Rom. Jour. of Sociological Studies, New Series, No. 1, p. 43–60, Bucharest, 2016 Creative Commons License Attribution–NoDerives CC-BY-ND 4.0 MEDICAL K-DRAMAS: A CROSS-SECTION OF SOUTH KOREA’S GLOBAL CULTURAL INDUSTRY DIANA PIŞCĂRAC * ABSTRACT Starting off from five medical K-dramas, General Hospital 2 / 종합병원2 (2009), Brain / 브레인(2011), The Third Hospital / 제3의병원(2012), Medical Top Team메디컬탑팀(2013) and Doctor Stranger닥터이방인(2014), this article attempts to explore different ways in which the creative content industry reflects genuine Korean cultural beliefs, moral values, political attitudes and economic goals in order to promote a successful image of Korea in the increasingly competitive soft power global context. My aim is to look beyond the specific storyline and recurring constitutive features of medical TV series and instead bring forward those elements that characterize Korea’s current soft power approach to the globalized world: professional competence, hierarchical social relations and high technology. The latter deserves special attention, as South Korea’s medical industry is currently flourishing, with state-of-the-art hospitals being built as far as the Middle East and Africa, while medical tourism is undergoing an unprecedented boom at home. In between these, the audience of medical K-dramas gains insight into Korean social relations, the dynamics of power and the human implications of any great achievement. Therefore, the creative content in these productions reflects the way South Korea wants to be perceived by the international community. Keywords: soft power, Hallyu, Korean Wave, medical drama, medical tourism. INTRODUCTION Ever since Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, crossed borders and expanded beyond a regional phenomenon in the late 2000s, South Korea's 1 presence on the international scene has been acknowledged like never before. From Tunis to Vancouver and from Teheran to Paris, people from all over the world have been exposed to Korea’s cultural influence to some degree, be it cars, phones, K-pop music or K-drama television programs. * MA Canadian Studies. University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Edgar Quinet, no. 5-7, Bucharest, Romania. E-mail: nomadiana@firemail.de. 1 Hereafter, Korea will indicate South Korea unless otherwise specified.