I first saw this video a while ago but it was brought back to my attention when I was trying to introduce a cute side of a performance group to some of my friends. Their name is Dong Bang Shin Ki, a Korean pop boy band. Luckily we found a version that had english subtitles done by some dedicated fans.
This video displays some of the points brought up in class and in Levy's article about collective intelligence. This is a show that is not broadcasted in the states and the only way for oversea fans to gain access to it is through youtube. This boy band performs in Korean, Japanese, English and sometimes Mandarin, developing an international fan base. This goes back to the idea of the "global village" that McLuhan describes. Despite the different languages and culture, we're all sharing this space and the experience. Often when videos are posted in "raw" (without subtitles) subbing groups would pick it up and translate the show for others. In some ways it challenges Levy's ideas because what's going on in this space is working together to access entertainment, it does not really work towards solving any world problems. At the end of the video the hosts challenges the viewers to go online and to increase the popularity of a web search which shows that it is possible for people to work together, but this is not for a the progress of the world but for a hair cut. - Dannie Phan
It's very insightful of Dannie to point out that the collaborative effort of subbing the Korean video in English is a demonstration of the "global village".
ReplyDeleteTaking this concept further, it would be interesting to examine which networks this video circulates among. Broadcast in Korea, this "gag show" (how a comedic skit show is often referred to in Korean) would be popular amongst a certain demographic that was attracted to celebrities and humor. Then we know that some fan(s) had to have enough technological skill to rip and upload the video online. However, it would be interesting to examine whether the subbing was done for the benefit of a non-Korean audience (who would have no access to the show through broadcast television), a native Korean audience who wished for repeat viewings, or the diasporic Korean audience who would have previous knowledge of the show but no convenient access. Are the English subtitles for the benefit of non-Korean English speaker or for second and third generation Koreans for whom English is the first language? Does the humor translate well through the subtitles? (I often find that Korean humor is so thoroughly embedded in a certain Korean-ness of our culture that it loses much of its impact in translation) In what networks is this video meant to travel and in what networks does it end up travelling?
Also, how could the mainstream old media producers financially benefit from this video? The rip circumvents the original advertisers. However, it could be argued that even if the commercials were left on, many products would be Korean and therefore meaningless or inaccessible to the abroad viewer. In this case, wouldn't a more beneficial approach be putting high quality free version on the tv network's official website and then running regionally targeted ads?
- Se Young Kang