Premediating a Narrative of Growth: BTS, Digital Media, and Fan Culture

Authors

  • Hyunshik Ju Sungkyul University

Abstract

This article explores the landscape of fan engagements with BTS, the South Korean idol group. It offers a new approach to studying digital participation in fan culture. Digital fan-based activity is singled out as BTS’s peculiarity in K-pop’s history. Grusin’s discussion of ‘premediation’ is used to describe an autopoietic system for the construction of futuristic reality through online communication between BTS and ARMY, as the fans are called. As such, the BTS’s live performance is experienced through ARMY’s premediation, imaging new identities of ARMY as well as BTS. The way that fans engage digitally with BTS’s live performance is motivated by a narrative of growth of BTS with and for ARMY. As an agent of BTS’s success, ARMY is crucial in driving new economic trajectories for performative products and their audiences, radically intervening in the shape and scope of BTS’s contribution to a global market economy. Hunshik Ju graduated with Doctor of Korean Literature from Sogang University in South Korea. He is currently a full-time lecturer at the department of Korean Literature and Language, Sungkyul University. 

Author Biography

Hyunshik Ju, Sungkyul University

In 2010, I graduated with Doctor of Korean Literature from Sogang University in South Korea. I majored in Korean drama and performance. My doctoral dissertation thesis was “A Study on Reflexivity of the Traditional Korean Masked Dance Drama”. My research area is performance and performativity studies. I am currently a full-time researcher at the Institute of Media Arts Culture, Kyonggi University, South Korea. Areas of interest include Performativity in Korean theatre; Traditional Korean theatre and Orientalism; North Korean Theatre’s Politics; Technology and Performativity. My paper, “Becoming Hamlet for Only Nine Days: Korean Workers and Documentary Theatre” was recently published in Theatre Research International in July, 2016.

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Published

2020-01-21

How to Cite

Ju, H. (2020). Premediating a Narrative of Growth: BTS, Digital Media, and Fan Culture. Popular Entertainment Studies, 10(1-2), 19–33. Retrieved from https://novaojs.newcastle.edu.au/kulumun/index.php/pes/article/view/223

Issue

Vol. 10 No. 1-2 (2019)

Section

Articles

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