1. The U.S. Adaptation of Korea’s Unscripted Format in the New Korean Wave Era: A Case Study of Grandpas Over Flowers
- Author:
- Dal Yong Jin and Ju Oak Kim
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Journal of Korean Studies
- Institution:
- International Council on Korean Studies
- Abstract:
- The Korean unscripted format has recently reshaped media flows and practices on a global scale. This article, based upon a comparative analysis of Grandpas Over Flowers (tvN) and Better Late Than Never (NBC), explores how the Korean broadcasting industry has attracted Western broadcasting providers with its travel-based reality format, and how an American television network has produced its own version, negotiating the local specificity that the original series contained. Certainly, cultural differences in media production between the two societies are largely embedded in the localizing process. While Grandpas Over Flowers was dependent upon the long-standing friendship between veteran actors and their public images as fathers and grandfathers within society, Better Late Than Never employs veteran entertainers’ professional successes as the driving force for adventuring into exotic cultures in East Asia. This article claims that the Grandpas Over Flowers case evokes a new phase of the Korean Wave phenomenon, revealing a non-Western media player’s attempt at challenging the domination of United States and United Kingdom television formats in the global media industries.
- Topic:
- Mass Media, Culture, Media, and popular culture
- Political Geography:
- Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America