1 Chapter 6 Postcolonial Production and Consumption of Global K-pop Kyong Yoon University of British Columbia Okanagan This is a pre-proof version of Yoon, K. (2017). Chapter 6. Postcolonial Production and Consumption of Global K-pop. In Jin, D. and Yoon, T-J. (eds.). The Korean Wave: Retrospect and Prospect, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. The global circulation of K-pop beyond Asia is particularly intriguing for media studies as it embodies ironies accompanied by globalization. As Ono and Kwon (2013) have pointed out, K- pop’s recent global rise “seems almost ironic given Korea’s colonized position during much of the twentieth century” (p. 199). In this respect, global K-pop can be considered a postcolonial media phenomenon because its production and dissemination have emerged as a result of Korea’s postcolonial struggle. Thus, global K-pop may not be fully analyzed without addressing its postcolonial dimension, which may be insufficiently captured by Western-oriented media theories. K-pop’s global flows mean more than its global reach or growing power in media markets, as the flows reveal a complexity and inequality of media production and reception on a global level. K-pop’s textual production might be a result of “mimicry” emerging from both the postcolonial cultural histories of Korea (Lie, 2012) and the national media industry’s strategic hybridization (Jin, 2016). K-pop’s reception process may reflect the disparity, rather than uniformity, of global media audiencehood (Choi & Maliangkay, 2015). In this respect, the production and consumption of global K-pop might be considered an example of “a postcolonial interruption” of Western-oriented, universalized media analysis (Shome, 2016, p. 247). In order to explore the “postcolonial interruption” of K-pop in media globalization, this chapter analyzes how K-pop is produced and consumed in a transnational context. First, it addresses the production of K-pop as a postcolonial process by exploring how the cultural form has gone through particular historical and cultural moments. Second, it examines the consumption of K-pop as a postcolonial process by exploring how it is re-signified in a transnational context. In particular, to effectively illustrate the media experiences of subaltern audiences in the West, the study addresses a minority group–Asian Canadian youth–that holds a relatively marginal audience position. The recent phenomenon of global K-pop may also offer an intriguing case for furthering postcolonial media studies. Existing media studies have explored the globalization of media, which “has inevitably always carried some postcolonial implications” (Merten & Kramer, 2016, p. 13). However, global media studies has not sufficiently developed a postcolonial perspective that challenges Western-oriented media analyses (Merten & Kramer, 2016; Shome, 2016). Not unlike many other social scientific disciplines, media studies has maintained a highly Western-