Circuit of culture gangnam style assignment

In this respect, the global success of ‘ Kananga Style’ would seem to show that new, diverse forms of media content (in this case, K-Pop, or Korean popular music) can now find a global market in spite of the dominance of the ‘ Big Six. Having said that, apart from some of the lyrics, there is little about the song itself which seems to be authentically’ Korean. Instead, the tune seems similar to many forms of western dance music.

One commentator, Chichi Buckish, has argued that cultural products which play down their cultural origins in this way are ‘ culturally odorless’ (Buckish, 2002: 27), and are therefore particularly well equipped when it comes to finding global markets. In this respect, it could be argued that, although Psych is Korean, his music belongs to a fairly homogeneous global style of dance music. In a similar vein, it is worth noting that, at the end of 201 2, Psych signed a contract with universal Republic Records.

As with the issue of production, then, when we raise issues of identity in relation to ‘ Kananga Style’, a complex picture In terms of regulation, Psych had some of his work censored and controlled by he South Korean government in the early stages of his career. His 2001 album was deemed to have ‘ inappropriate content’, while his follow-up album in 2002 was not allowed to be sold to those under the age of eighteen. More recently, the video for his new single, ‘ Gentleman’, the follow-up to ‘ Kananga Style’, has been banned by KBPS TV, a state-run broadcaster.

There are three ways in which governments can intervene in the media: by regulating it, by subsidizing it and by promoting it. Attempts to control access to Sys work in South Korea are an example of the former. In his semiotic theory, Roland Berates distinguishes between a sign’s literal meaning (its denotation) and its implicit meaning (or connotation). In terms of representation, it would be possible to carry out a semiotic analysis of the video for ‘ Kananga Style’ which drew on Berates’ ideas, although this would necessarily be a complex task, as the semiotic method encourages us to analyses texts in a particularly detailed manner.