The edited volume analyzes how Korean culture fandoms construct their social identity within the emerging global subculture. It explores the formation of fandom networks and the resulting cultural reproduction. It also seeks to understand fans’ consumerism, activism, and appropriation of Korean culture. Scholars from diverse academic backgrounds provide an interdisciplinary analysis of K-culture fandoms, broadening readers’ understanding of how fandoms influence the formation of youth identities and subcultural practices. This book examines how Korean culture fandoms sustain themselves with affective practices and how cultural preferences are shifting. An in-depth analysis of these elements provides insights into cultural hybridity, cross-national cultural communication, subculture, youth identity, consumerism, and cultural reproduction against the backdrop of increasing digitalization worldwide. The book contributes in the areas of media and cultural studies, global culture and politics, arts and humanities, social sciences and area studies.

Ratan Kumar Roy, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at South Asian University. He taught at the School of General Education, BRAC University, Dhaka. He was a Charles Wallace Trust Postdoctoral Visiting Fellow at LSE, UK, 2022-23. Dr Roy was a Residency Fellow at Asia Culture Centre, Republic of Korea in 2018 and is a member of International Visual Sociology Association. His major publications include: Television in Bangladesh - News and Audiences (Routledge 2021), Korean Wave in South Asia- Transcultural Flow, Fandom, and Identity (Palgrave MacMillan 2022), Seeing South Asia: Visuals Beyond Borders (co-editor, Routledge 2022), and Television Publics in South Asia: Mediated Politics and Culture (co-editor, Routledge 2024). He is the Director of SIMEC Research Center, Singapore.