Korean Wave

Overview

The Korean term for the phenomenon of the Korean Wave is Hanryu (Hangul: 한류), more commonly romanized as Hallyu. The term is made of two root words; han (韓) roughly means "Korean", while liu or ryu (流) means "flow" or "wave", referring to the diffusion of Korean culture.

This term is sometimes applied differently outside of Korea; for example, overseas, Hallyu drama is used to describe Korean drama in general, but in Korea, Hallyu drama and Korean drama are taken to mean slightly different things. According to researcher Jeongmee Kim, the term Hallyu is used to refer only to dramas that have gained success overseas, or feature actors that are internationally recognised.

The Korean Wave encompasses the global awareness of different aspects of South Korean culture including film and television (particularly "K-dramas"), K-pop, manhwa, the Korean language, and Korean cuisine. Some commentators also consider traditional Korean culture in its entirety to be part of the Korean Wave. American political scientist Joseph Nye interprets the Korean Wave as "the growing popularity of all things Korean, from fashion and film to music and cuisine."

Background

An early mention of Korean culture as a form of soft power can be found in the writings of Kim Gu, leader of the Korean independence movement and president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Towards the end of his autobiography, he writes:

...I want our nation to be the most beautiful in the world. By this I do not mean the most powerful nation. Because I have felt the pain of being invaded by another nation, I do not want my nation to invade others. It is sufficient that our wealth makes our lives abundant; it is sufficient that our strength is able to prevent foreign invasions. The only thing that I desire in infinite quantity is the power of a noble culture. This is because the power of culture both makes us happy and gives happiness to others...

1950–1995: Foundations of cultural industry

Following the Korean War (1950–53) and the Korean Armistice Agreement signed in 1953, South Korea experienced a period of rapid economic growth known as the Miracle on the Han River.

In the film industry, screen quotas were introduced in South Korea during Park Chung-hee's presidency to restrict the number of foreign films shown in cinemas. These were intended to prevent competition between domestic films and foreign blockbuster movies. However, in 1986, the Motion Pictures Exporters Association of America filed a complaint to the United States Senate regarding the regulations imposed by the South Korean government, which was compelled to lift the restrictions. In 1988, Twentieth Century Fox became the first American film studio to set up a distribution office in South Korea, followed by Warner Brothers (1989), Columbia (1990), and Walt Disney (1993).

By 1994, Hollywood's share of the South Korean movie market had reached a peak of around 80 percent, and the local film industry's share fell to a low of 15.9 percent. That year, president Kim Young-sam was advised to provide support and subsidies to Korean media production, as part of the country's export strategy. According to South Korean media, the former President was urged to take note of how total revenues generated by Hollywood's Jurassic Park had surpassed the sale of 1.5 million Hyundai automobiles; with the latter a source of national pride, this comparison reportedly influenced the government's shift of focus towards culture as an exportable industry. At this time, the South Korean Ministry of Culture set up a cultural industry bureau to develop its media sector, and many investors were encouraged to expand into film and media. Thus, by the end of 1995 the foundation was laid for the rise of Korean culture.

1995–1999: Development of cultural industry

In July 1997, the Asian financial crisis led to heavy losses in the manufacturing sector, prompting a handful of businesses to turn to the entertainment sector.

According to The New York Times, South Korea began to lift restrictions on cultural imports from its former colonial ruler Japan in 1998. With an aim of tackling an impending "onslaught" of Japanese movies, anime, manga, and J-pop, the South Korean Ministry of Culture made a request for a substantial budget increase, which allowed the creation of 300 cultural industry departments in colleges and universities nationwide.

In February 1999, the first local big-budget film, Shiri, was released and became a major commercial success. It grossed over US$11 million, surpassing the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic.

1999–2010: Korean Wave in Asia

Around this time, several Korean television dramas were broadcast in China. On November 19, 1999, one of China's state-controlled daily newspapers, the Beijing Youth Daily, published an article acknowledging the "zeal of Chinese audiences for Korean TV dramas and pop songs". In February 2000, S.M. Entertainment's boy-band H.O.T. became the first modern K-pop artist to give an overseas performance, with a sold-out concert in Beijing. As the volume of Korean cultural imports rapidly increased, China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television responded with a decision to restrict and limit the number of Korean TV dramas shown to Chinese audiences.

However, several other countries in East Asia were also experiencing a growth in the popularity of Korean dramas and pop songs. In 2000 in the Indian state of Manipur, where Bollywood movies were banned by separatists, consumers gradually turned their attention to Korean entertainment. According to Agence France-Presse, Korean phrases were commonly heard in the schoolyards and street markets of Manipur. Many Korean dramas and films were smuggled into Manipur from neighbouring Burma, in the form of CDs and DVDs. In 2002, BoA's album Listen to My Heart became the first album by a Korean musician to sell a million copies in Japan.

At the same time that Hallyu was experiencing early success, there was an equally noticeable growth in cultural imports from Taiwan, also one of the Four Asian Tigers. The 2001 Taiwanese drama Meteor Garden (an adaptation of the Japanese shōjo manga series Boys Over Flowers) was popular over the continent: it became the most-watched drama series in Philippine television history, garnered over 10 million daily viewers in Manila alone, and catapulted the male protagonists from Taiwanese boyband F4 to overnight fame, spawning a sequel and later adaptations by other networks (including Korean channel KBS in 2009.)

On June 8, 2001, Shinhwa's fourth album Hey, Come On! was released to success over Asia. The group became particularly popular in China and Taiwan.

In 2002, Winter Sonata (produced by Korean channel KBS2) became the first drama to equal the success of Meteor Garden, attracting a cult following in Asia. Sales of merchandise, including DVD sets and novels, surpassed US$3.5 million in Japan. This drama marked the initial entrance of the Korean Wave in Japan. In 2004, former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi noted that the male protagonist of the drama was "more popular than I am in Japan". Other Korean dramas released in subsequent years such as Dae Jang Geum (2003) and Full House (2004) saw comparable levels of success.

Since 2002, television programming trends in Asia began to undergo changes as series from both South Korea and Taiwan began to fill prime time slots previously reserved for Hollywood movies.

The breakthrough for K-pop came with the debuts of TVXQ (2003), SS501 (2005), Super Junior (2005), and other artists hailed by a BBC reporter as "household names in much of Asia". In 2003, South Korean girl group Baby V.O.X. released a Chinese single entitled "I'm Still Loving You" and topped various music charts in China, making a huge fanbase there. Both "I'm Still Loving You" and their subsequent Korean single "What Should I Do" also charted in Thailand.

Meanwhile, the popularity of Korean television continued to spread across the continent. Reports about Asian women travelling to South Korea to find love, inspired by Korean romance dramas, began to appear in the media, including in the Washington Post.

In Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, Korean dramas began to increasingly take up airtime on TV channels in these countries with Winter Sonata and Full House credited to igniting the interest in Korean pop culture in these countries. Korean fashion and hairstyles became trendy amongst youth in Nepal and led to a Korean language course boom in the country which has persisted to today. Korean cuisine experienced a surge of popularity in Nepal with more Korean eateries opening in the country throughout the early to mid 2000s. Similarly, Korean cuisine also became popular in Sri Lanka and Bhutan with Korean restaurants opening to satisfy the demand in these countries.

By the late 2000s, many Taiwanese musicians had been superseded by their K-pop counterparts, and although a small number of groups such as F4 and Fahrenheit continued to maintain fan bases in Asia, young audiences were more receptive to newer K-pop bands such as Big Bang and Super Junior.

2010–present: Korean Wave globally

In the United States, Korean culture and K-pop has spread outwards from Korean American immigrant communities such as those in Los Angeles and New York City. However, even a few years ago there was little response from American music producers; according to the chief operating officer of Mnet Media, its employees' attempt to pitch over 300 K-pop music videos to American producers and record labels was met with a lukewarm response, there being "relationships so they would be courteous, but it was not a serious conversation". Similarly, attempted US debuts by artists such as BoA and Se7en failed to gain traction. They were labeled by a CNN reporter as "complete flops".

Despite this, K-pop itself and Korean television (with shows such as Jumong being particularly well received by audiences in the Muslim world) have seen increasing popularity throughout the US and elsewhere, with a dedicated and growing global fanbase, particularly after Psy's video for "Gangnam Style" went viral in 2012-13 and was the first YouTube video to reach over a billion views. The platform of YouTube was vital in the increasing international popularity of K-pop, overriding the reluctance of radio DJs to air foreign-language songs in reaching a global audience. A CNN reporter attending KCON 2012 (a popular US K-pop convention) in Irvine, California said, "If you stop anyone here and ask them how they found out about K-pop, they found it out on YouTube."

In 2012, the Korean Wave was officially mentioned by both US President Barack Obama at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies on March 26 (Full transcript at [1]) and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the National Assembly of South Korea on October 30 (Full transcript at un.org).

In February 2013, Peru's vice president Marisol Espinoza was interviewed by South Korea's Yonhap News Agency and welcomed the Korean Wave to Peru. That month, White House officials managing First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama's Twitter account revealed that they had gathered Napa cabbage from the South Lawn to make kimchi, a traditional Korean pickled cabbage dish. As an editor of Esquire magazine pointed out, this was considered perplexing because it "skews so far from the White House's usual fare". This news came shortly after it was reported that sales of Korean cuisine at the British supermarket chain Tesco more than doubled, and there were further mainstream reports of the Korean Wave in Germany and France.

That year, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi made her first visit to South Korea and attended a dinner with several actors including Ahn Jae-wook, whom Suu Kyi reportedly invited because of his resemblance to her assassinated father Aung San.

On February 25, 2013, South Korea's newly elected president Park Geun-hye delivered her inauguration speech, where she promised to build a nation that "becomes happier through culture," and to foster a "new cultural renaissance" that will transcend ethnicity and overcome ideologies because of its "ability to share happiness". According to The Korea Times, one of Park Geun-hye's main priorities as president will be to allocate at least 2 percent of the national budget to further develop South Korea's cultural industry and to seek more cultural exchanges with North Korea.

South Korea has experienced recent growth in the tourism sector, welcoming over 12 million visitors in 2013, with 6 million tourists from China alone. However, that year, a state survey of 3,600 respondents from over the world found that over 66% of respondents believed that the popularity of Korean culture would "subside in the next four years".

In 2016, Forbes posted featuring articles on economic impact of global kpop stars. The top act in its niche of kpop stars, BIGBANG took home $44 million in pretax earnings over the past year, easily more than the $33.5 million collected by today's highest-paid American all-male arena pop group, Maroon 5

Hallyu Index

State-funded trade promotion organisation KOTRA publishes an annual index measuring the reach of the Korean Wave in major countries around the world. The index is calculated by a combination of export data and public surveys. In 2015, public surveys were conducted across 8,130 people in 29 countries.

The results shown below indicate the greatest popularity in Asian countries, with Indonesia and Thailand experiencing the fastest growth of those, while there is declining interest in the Philippines, Japan, India, Iran, Italy, and Mexico.

Fan clubs

According to a 2011 survey conducted by the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the total number of active members of Hallyu fan clubs worldwide was estimated at 3.3 million, based on statistics published by official fan clubs in regions where there are Korean Cultural Centers. In the same year, the Korea Tourism Organization surveyed 12,085 fans of Hallyu and concluded that most fans were young adults, over 90% were female, and most were fans of K-pop.

Foreign relations

South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism (MOFAT) has been responsible for international advocacy of Korean culture. The South Korean government is involved in the organisation of concerts such as the annual K-Pop World Festival.

China

In the past decade or so, many Chinese officials have expressed positivity towards Korean media and entertainment, including former President Hu Jintao and former Premier Wen Jiabao, who was quoted by Xinhua News Agency as saying: "Regarding the Hallyu phenomenon, the Chinese people, especially the youth, are particularly attracted to it and the Chinese government considers the Hallyu phenomenon to be a vital contribution towards mutual cultural exchanges flowing between China and South Korea."

A four-member research study led by Kang Myung-koo of Seoul National University published a controversial report in 2013 suggesting that Chinese viewers of Korean dramas were generally within the lower end of the education and income spectrum. This led to an angry response from Chinese fans of Korean television, with one group purchasing a full-page advertisement in the Chosun Ilbo to request an apology from the authors of the study.

In August 2016, it was reported that China planned to ban Korean media broadcasts and K-pop idol promotions within the country in opposition to South Korea's defensive deployment of THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) missiles.

Japan

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledges that the Korean Wave in Japan has led to discussion and mutual cultural exchange between the two countries, with high-profile fans of Korean television including former First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama and current First Lady Akie Abe. However, remaining tension between Japan and Korea has led to instances of street protests involving hundreds of people, demonstrating against the popularity of Korean entertainment exports. These protests were mostly organized by critics of Korean pop culture with the support of right-wing nationalists.

Taiwan

Local broadcasting channel GTV began to broadcast Korean television dramas in the late 1990s. The shows were dubbed into Mandarin and were not marketed as foreign, which may have helped them to become widely popular during this time.

Middle East and North Africa

Since the mid-2000s, Israel, Morocco, Egypt and Iran have become major consumers of Korean culture. Following the success of Korean dramas in the Middle East, the Korean Overseas Information Service made Winter Sonata available with Arabic subtitles on several state-run Egyptian television networks. The New York Times reported that the intent behind this was to contribute towards positive relations between Arab audiences and South Korean soldiers stationed in northern Iraq.

Israel

In 2006, the Korean drama My Lovely Sam Soon was aired on Israeli cable channel Viva. Despite a lukewarm response, there followed a surge in interest in Korean television shows, and a further thirty Korean dramas were broadcast on the same channel. In 2008, Yediot Aharonot, the most widely circulated daily Israeli newspaper, described the popularity of Korean dramas in Israel as a "revolution" in cultural tastes, and in 2013, popular Israeli newspaper Calcalist published a three-page cover story on how K-pop had "conquered" Israeli youth.

In 2008, a Korean language course was launched at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, offering lectures on Korean history, politics, and culture.

It is hoped by some commentators that the surging popularity of Korean culture across Israel and Palestine may serve as a bridge over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported that some Israeli and Palestinian K-pop fans see themselves as "cultural missionaries" and actively introduce K-pop to their friends and relatives, further spreading the Korean Wave within their communities.

Egypt

Autumn in My Heart, one of the earliest Korean dramas brought over to the Middle East, was made available for viewing after five months of "persistent negotiations" between the South Korean embassy and an Egyptian state-run broadcasting company. Shortly after the series ended, the embassy reported that it had received over 400 phone calls and love letters from fans from all over the country. According to the secretary of the South Korean embassy in Cairo Lee Ki-seok, Korea's involvement in the Iraq War had significantly undermined its reputation among Egyptians, but the screening of Autumn in My Heart proved "extremely effective" in reversing negative attitudes.

Iran

Iran's state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), aired several Korean dramas during prime time slots in recent years, with this decision attributed by some to their Confucian values of respect for others, which are "closely aligned to Islamic culture", while in contrast, Western productions often fail to satisfy the criteria set by Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. In October 2012, the Tehran Times reported that IRIB representatives visited South Korea to visit filming locations in an effort to strengthen "cultural affinities" between the two countries and to seek avenues for further cooperation between KBS and IRIB.

According to Reuters, until recently audiences in Iran have had little choice in broadcast material and thus programs that are aired by IRIB often attain higher viewership ratings in Iran than in South Korea; for example, the most popular episodes of Jumong attracted over 90% of Iranian audience (compared to 40% in South Korea), propelling the its lead actor Song Il-gook to superstar status in Iran.

Researchers from both countries have recently studied the cultural exchanges between Silla (one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea) and the Persian Empire. The Korea Times reported that the two cultures may have been similar 1,200 years ago.

Iraq

In the early 2000s, Korean dramas were aired for South Korean troops stationed in northern Iraq as part of coalition forces led by the United States during the Iraq War. With the end of the war and the subsequent withdrawal of South Korean military personnel from the country, efforts were made to expand availability of K-dramas to the ordinary citizens of Iraq.

In 2012, the Korean drama Hur Jun reportedly attained a viewership of over 90% in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Its lead actor Jun Kwang-ryul was invited by the federal government of Iraq to visit the city of Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, at the special request of the country's First Lady, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed.

Turkey

In February 2012, JYJ member Jaejoong was invited by the South Korean Embassy in Ankara to hold an autograph session at Ankara University. Before departing for concerts in South America, Jaejoong also attended a state dinner with the presidents of South Korea (Lee Myung Bak) and Turkey (Abdullah Gül).

Australia

In March 2012, former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited South Korea's Yonsei University, where she acknowledged that her country has "caught" the Korean Wave that is "reaching all the way to our shores."

New Zealand

In November 2012, New Zealand's Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrea Smith, delivered a key note address to South Korean diplomats at the University of Auckland, where she asserted that the Korean Wave is becoming "part of the Kiwi lifestyle" and added that "there is now a 4,000 strong association of K-Pop followers in New Zealand."

Romania

The first Korean drama in Romania was aired on TVR in August 2009, and in the following month it became the third most popular television program in the country. Since then, Korean dramas have seen high ratings and further success.

France

The French Foreign Ministry acknowledges the status of Hallyu as a global phenomenon that is characterized by the "growing worldwide success of Korean popular culture".

Germany

The German Foreign Office has confirmed that "Korean entertainment (Hallyu, telenovelas, K-Pop bands, etc) is currently enjoying great popularity and success in Asia and beyond."

United Kingdom

In November 2012, the British Minister of State for the Foreign Office, Hugo Swire, held a meeting with South Korean diplomats at the House of Lords, where he affirmed that Korean music had gone "global".

United States

During a bilateral meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-Hye at the White House in May 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama cited "Gangnam Style" as an example of how people around the world are being "swept up by Korean culture – the Korean Wave." In August 2013, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also affirmed that the Korean Wave "spreads Korean culture to countries near and far."

United Nations

On October 30, 2012, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivered a speech in front of the National Assembly of South Korea where he noted how Korean culture and the Hallyu-wave is "making its mark on the world".

Sociocultural

The Korean Wave has spread the influence of aspects of Korean culture including fashion, music, television programs and formats, cosmetics, games, cuisine, manhwa and beauty standards.

In China, many broadcasters have taken influences from Korean entertainment programs such as Running Man; in 2014 SBS announced the Chinese version of this program, Hurry Up, Brother, which was a major hit as an example of a unique category of programs known as 'urban action varieties'.

Korean media has also been influential throughout Asia in terms of beauty standards. In Taiwan, where the drama Dae Jang Geum was extremely popular, some fans reportedly underwent cosmetic surgery to look similar to lead actress Lee Young-ae.

Political and economic

In 2012, a poll conducted by the BBC revealed that public opinion of South Korea had been improving every year since data began to be collected in 2009. In countries such as Russia, India, China and France, public opinion of South Korea turned from "slightly negative" to "generally positive". This increase in 'soft power' corresponded with a surge in exports of US$4.3 billion in 2011.

Korean producers have capitalised on high demand in Asia due to the popularity of Korean media, which enabled KBS to sell its 2006 drama Spring Waltz to eight Asian countries during its pre-production stage in 2004.

The following data is based on government statistics:

The following data is from the Korea Creative Contents Agency (part of the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism) for the first quarter of the 2012 fiscal year:

Relations with North Korea

The ninth President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, acknowledged the possible use of Hallyu as a tool to help to reunify the Korean Peninsula. In May 2007 the television series Hwang Jini, adapted from a novel by a North Korean author, became the first South Korean production to be made available for public viewing in North Korea.

With the end of the Roh Moo-hyun administration's Sunshine Policy towards North Korea and a deterioration of North-South relations, however, Hallyu media was quickly restrained by North Korean authorities, although a report published by Radio Free Asia (a non-profit radio network funded by the U.S. federal government) suggested that the Korean Wave "may already have taken a strong hold in the isolated Stalinist state".

In 2010, researchers from the Korea Institute for National Unification surveyed 33 North Korean defectors and found that the impact of shows such as Winter Sonata had played a significant role in shaping the decision of the defectors to flee to the South. It was further revealed that a small number of people living close to the Korean Demilitarized Zone have been tampering with their televisions sets in order to receive signals from South Korean broadcast stations in the vicinity, while CDs and DVDs smuggled across the border with China also increased the reach of South Korean popular culture in the North. In 2012, the Institute surveyed a larger group of 100 North Korean defectors. According to this research, South Korean media was prevalent within the North Korean elite. It also affirmed that North Koreans living close to the border with China had the highest degree of access to South Korean entertainment, as opposed to other areas of the country. Notels, Chinese-made portable media players that have been popular in North Korea since 2005, have been credited with contributing to the spread of the Hallyu wave in the Northern country.

In October 2012, the Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, gave a speech to the Korean People's Army in which he vowed to "extend the fight against the enemy's ideological and cultural infiltration". A study conducted earlier that year by an international group commissioned by the U.S. State Department came to the conclusion that North Korea was "increasingly anxious" to keep the flow of information at bay, but had little ability to control it, as there was "substantial demand" for movies and television programs from the South as well as many "intensely entrepreneurial" smugglers from the Chinese side of the border willing to fulfill the demand.

In February 2013, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that Psy's 2012 single "Gangnam Style" had "deeply permeated North Korea", after a mission group had disseminated K-pop CDs and other cultural goods across the China–North Korea border.

On May 15, 2013, the NGO Human Rights Watch confirmed that "entertainment shows from South Korea are particularly popular and have served to undermine the North Korean government's negative portrayals of South Korea".

Tourism

South Korea's tourism industry has been greatly influenced by the increasing popularity of its media. According to the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), monthly tourist numbers have increased from 311,883 in March 1996 to 1,389,399 in March 2016.

The Korean Tourism Organisation recognises K-pop and other aspects of the Korean Wave as pull factors for tourists, and launched a campaign in 2014 entitled "Imagine your Korea", which highlighted Korean entertainment as an important part of tourism. According to a KTO survey of 3,775 K-pop fans in France, 9 in 10 said they wished to visit Korea, while more than 75 percent answered that they were actually planning to go. In 2012, Korean entertainment agency S.M. Entertainment expanded into the travel sector, providing travel packages for those wanting to travel to Korea to attend concerts of artists signed under its label.

Many fans of Korean television dramas are also motivated to travel to Korea, sometimes to visit filming locations such as Nami Island, where Winter Sonata was shot and where there were over 270,000 visitors in 2005. The majority of these tourists are female. K-drama actors such as Kim Soo-hyun have appeared in KTO promotional materials.

Criticism

The Korean Wave has also been met with backlash and anti-Korean sentiment in countries such as China, Japan, and Taiwan. Existing negative attitudes towards Korean culture may be rooted in nationalism or historical conflicts.

In China, producer Zhang Kuo Li described the Korean Wave as a "cultural invasion" and advised Chinese people to reject Korean exports.

In Japan, an anti-Korean comic, Manga Kenkanryu ("Hating the Korean Wave") was published on July 26, 2005, and became a No. 1 bestseller on the Amazon Japan site. On August 8, 2011, Japanese actor Sousuke Takaoka openly showed his dislike for the Korean Wave on Twitter, which triggered an Internet movement to boycott Korean programs on Japanese television. Anti-Korean sentiment also surfaced when Kim Tae-Hee, a Korean actress, was selected to be on a Japanese soap opera in 2011: since she had been an activist in the Liancourt Rocks dispute for the Dokdo movement in Korea, some Japanese people were enraged that she would be on the Japanese TV show. There was a protest against Kim Tae-Hee in Japan, which later turned into a protest against the Korean Wave. According to a Korea Times article posted in February 2014, "Experts and observers in Korea and Japan say while attendance at the rallies is still small and such extreme actions are far from entering the mainstream of Japanese politics, the hostile demonstrations have grown in size and frequency in recent months."

The Korean entertainment industry has also been criticised for its methods and links to corruption, as reported by broadcaster Al Jazeera in February 2012.

In the West, some commentators noted similarities between the South Korean Ministry of Culture's support of the Korean Wave and the CIA's involvement in the Cultural Cold War with the former Soviet Union. According to The Quietus magazine, suspicion of Hallyu as a venture sponsored by the South Korean government to strengthen its political influence bears "a whiff of the old Victorian fear of Yellow Peril".

The South Korean entertainment industry has been faced with claims of mistreatment towards its musical artists. This issue came to a head when popular boy group Dong Bang Shin Ki, better known as DBSK or TVXQ, brought their management company to court over allegations of mistreatment. The artist claimed they had not been paid what they were owed and that their 13-year long contracts were far too long. While the court did rule in their favor, allegations of mistreatment of artists is still rampant.