Abstract
Japanese and Korean popular culture has brought the consumer culture of the two countries to neighboring nations and greatly boosted inbound tourism. Nevertheless, the degree to which popular culture is effective as a soft power strategy remains a point of debate. This chapter empirically explores whether the Japan-mania and the Korean Wave that swept Taiwan in the 1990s and 2000s respectively have changed Taiwanese perceptions of Japan and South Korea. Focusing on the media as the dominant representation of culture, I examine Taiwanese media discourses on Japan and South Korea from 1951 to 2015 in order to look at discursive continuities and changes. The findings show that, first, Japan and South Korea have been represented with very different themes. Japan has been portrayed either as the main political adversary or as a frontrunner of modernization. These two narratives are greatly influenced by Taiwan’s domestic politics, which has been polarized by two opposing nationalisms. In contrast, South Korea has been framed as Taiwan’s major economic competitor on the road to modernization. Therefore, media discourses on Japan and South Korea actually reflect Taiwan’s struggle over identity. Second, with the onset of inflows of Japanese and Korean popular culture, extreme discourses in Taiwan regarding the two countries have also increased. In addition to positive portrayals of their popular culture and consumer culture, politically polarized discourses on Japan and discussion of economic competition against South Korea have also become dramatized. This indicates that transnational cultural flows enhance mutual understanding in some ways, but can also spur resistance. The forms of resistance may vary, depending on the local context.
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Notes
- 1.
According to a report by Japan’s Shukan Shincho, Taiwan donated more money to Japan than any other country in the world right after the March 11 earthquake of 2011 (The Taipei Times 17 April 2011).
- 2.
UDNData is the electronic database of the United Daily News Group, and KMW is the electronic database of the China Times Group. Both databases contain the contents of several newspapers affiliated with the two groups. Until the 1990s, the United Daily News and the China Times, under the protection of the press ban, had been the most popular newspapers in terms of readership in Taiwan. The content of the United Daily News was in concert with government ideologies and public opinions. Currently the Liberty Times and the Apply Daily lead those two newspapers in circulation. While the United Daily News and the China Times are considered friendly to China after Taiwan’s democratization in the late 1980s, the Liberty Times and the Apply Daily have held an anti-China stand since they were launched.
- 3.
CommonWealth has been the most sustainable and prominent financial magazine in Taiwan, with a complete digital database from 1981. In addition to CommonWealth, other magazine articles analyzed in this chapter were downloaded from the Hyread ebook database, which includes more than 100 magazines in Taiwan.
- 4.
The publications originally written in Chinese are indicated in the references, and the contents were translated into English by the author.
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Huang, S. (2018). Japanese and Korean Popular Culture and Identity Politics in Taiwan. In: Kawashima, N., Lee, HK. (eds) Asian Cultural Flows. Creative Economy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0147-5_13
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