Wrestling with or Embracing Digitization in the Music Industry: The Contrasting Business Strategies of J-pop and K-pop

During the 1980s-1990s, Japanese pop music (J-pop) was widely predicted to expand to the rest of the world. Yet, since the 2000s, J-pop has experienced a noticeable decline in its international popularity. Contrary to what was expected, Korean pop music (K-pop) successfully has emerged and has enjoyed widespread popularity around the world. This session will explain changes in the process for producing and consuming music and the different strategies of the music industries in Japan and Korea, which have resulted in divergent outcomes facing digitization.

Jimmyn Parc is a Visiting Lecturer at the Sciences Po, France and a Research Associate at the EU Centre, Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University, Korea. He is also a Research Associate of the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE), Belgium. For his main topic of research on the cultural and creative services industries, Dr. Parc focuses on the film and music industries who are faced with a changing business and trade environment as well as new challenges from digitization.

Moderator: Marie Söderberg, Professor and Director,
European Institute of Japanese Studies, Stockholm School of Economics

Discussant: Ji-Won Song, Ph.D. Candidate,
European Institute of Japanese Studies, Stockholm School of Economics

RSVP to nanhee.lee@hhs.se by October 25, 2018

The Japan seminar series is jointly organized by the European Institute of Japanese Studies at Stockholm School of Economics, the Asia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University and the Swedish Defence University. It features monthly seminars on Japanese economy, politics and society.