Creative industry strategies in a globalized and digitized media landscape: the South Korean blueprint

Many analysts had initially anticipated that digitalization and the proliferation of internet usage would diversify international media consumption. However, the opposite has generally held true. Despite individuals now having greater choice and ease of access with regards to the media they consume via platforms such as YouTube and Netflix, the prominence of domestic output in many countries has diminished relative to the rapid growth of US-produced English language content. This growth has been supercharged by digitalization, the internet, and crucially—the global superiority of US big-tech firms. However, one country has bucked this trend to an extraordinary extent: South Korea has emerged over the past two decades as an unlikely cultural superpower, with media output from the country not only dominating domestically, but also permeating global markets. This chapter will analyze and explore South Korea’s decades-long digital revolution and creative industry strategies as fundamental drivers of this success, while assessing the extent to which these can be replicated by other nations seeking to utilize the internet’s potential in their domestic mediascapes.