This presentation will reflect and share research results of the project on mapping and measuring Hallyu soft power developed as a part of the bigger research Mapping Global Impacts of Hallyu, The Korean Wave, funded by the Korean Foundation in 2024 (https://datatopower.net/hallyu). The project aims to advance policy-oriented studies on Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, that refers to the current global spread and impact of creative industries products specific to South Korean popular culture on different parts of the world. It aims to explore the Korean Wave as a highly complex global phenomenon that has different layers of manifestations across multiple stages of its existence from production to consumption in transnational contexts. The project employs data-driven and machine learning approaches combined with traditional qualitative research to measure, map, and predict the spread, reach, intensity and impacts of the Korean Wave across different geo-locations to benefit a more informed, strategic, and evidence-based approach to Hallyu national policy and international diplomacy.
The Panel will bring together 4 scholars from different academic disciplines who will draw on the Hallyu Tacker mapping application to tease out insights on geographic and temporal patterns and trends in the global expansion of Hallyu across different countries around the world. These insights based on the historical fluctuations of Hallyu geo-temporal journeys as well as predictive analytics visualising its potential future developments will be instrumental to discuss such important questions as: 1) Could Hallyu be instrumentalized as a soft power tool and could we demystify the mechanisms of its national, transactional and universal appeal forces? 2) If and to what extent the South Korean government's creative industries’ support, domestic and foreign cultural policy and international diplomacy are potent to shape the Hallyu spread, presence and intensity across different geo-locations? 3) If and how local challenges and opportunities, from economic to political, as geo-variables determine the Hallyu popularity in the local environments? 4) Why is Hallyu facing the emergence of negative contra-flows and to what extent it prevents its penetration to new communities and markets around the world?