'A World To Be What We Are Not’ : An Ethnographic Exploration Of Korean Pop Music Audiences In Contemporary Britain

Recently, Korean popular music, known more commonly as K-pop, has experienced substantial growth in its global audienceship, including in Britain. Understanding why particular media become popular can be revealing of the social environments within which they circulate (Kellner, 2020: 9). This thesis thus explores this understudied phenomenon, asking in what ways British-based audiences understand and use K-pop within their everyday lives to appreciate why this music space matters to them. Drawing upon literature across fandom research, media anthropology, hallyu studies and queer theory, this thesis examines this topic through the use of both on and offline ethnographic methodologies. Focus is primarily placed on exploring fans of K-pop, but also considers those who “hate” it, as well as those who neither claim to love nor hate it, but persist in engaging with this pop culture sphere nevertheless. Additionally, responding to the work of Gray (2003, 2019, 2021), this thesis recognises the importance of considering beyond ‘liking’ when asking questions of why media matters to its audiences, and so places at the forefront of analysis expressions of dislike, disagreement and tension. This thesis argues that audiences understand K-pop in light of its queer potential and consequently use this media as a space through which to funnel pedagogy and change around societal issues recognised with regard to the regulation of normative ways of being. Discussion of such issues is found to interweave with broader debates circulating within the tense, polarising political upheavals of the contemporary period, often referred to as ‘the culture wars’. This thesis thus illustrates how literacies around these issues are built and shared by interlocutors via K-pop, particularly within the online world, as well as how K-pop is used as a tool through which to build ‘a world to be what we are not’. That is, to explore potential resolutions to these issues, which are then experimentally mapped onto the quotidian and funnelled into pursuits for a better tomorrow, both for oneself and also collectively. This thesis finds fans primarily delight at K-pop’s queer potential and argues they use it in this way to strive towards what I term ‘unboundedness’. That is, to become ‘unbound’ by regulations and expectations enforced in light of belonging to particular social categories, especially those regarding gender, sexuality and race. Whilst recognising the complexities and contradictions that emerge amongst these progressively minded individuals which can serve to thwart their aims for ‘unboundedness’, as well as the presence of those in the audience who are steeped in reactionary politics and thus conversely aim to use K-pop as a tool to reaffirm the ‘bounded’ normative status quo, this thesis ultimately demonstrates the queer emancipatory impact of this activity within fans’ everyday lives.