I recently learned about Viki, a site that hosts Korean dramas many of which, if not all, are translated from Korean by international fans. In an interview on Kultscene, two volunteers that subtitle and segment Korean dramas without pay talk about many of the trademarks of of Hallyu. User Bjohnsonwon describes the pride they have to be part of a community that makes Korean dramas more accessible to larger audiences. In particular, there is a sense that the Viki community works together as part of a larger project, similar to how fans of BTS have created an imagined community like BTS ARMY. Beyond the Viki community however, there is also the idea that Korean dramas are a source of pleasure that should be translated for transnational audiences to consume.
The dedication that the fans have for the dramas becomes apparent not through the amount of labor that Viki users volunteer. Bjohnsonwon describes how the turnaround time for translating ‘Pinocchio’ was at most 24 hours, a feat that requires coordination of multiple users of different skill sets and language capabilities. The success of their unpaid labor seems to be an exciting example of how we can create effective community organizations without the coercive oversight of a corporation or government.
This idea, that the laborers can organize amongst themselves without being subject to a rigid hierarchy, seems to complicate Adorno’s formulation of the culture industry. Instead of “integrat[ing] consumers from above” like Adorno argues, the consumers can organize without integrating at all (Adorno 12). And in the case of the role of fans like Bjohnsonwon, Adorno would argue they are objects of the culture industry. I take this to mean that the Korean culture industry has, intentionally or otherwise, created the conditions that would convince fans to contribute and translate their dramas.
The willingness of the consumer to contribute their labor seems to fit into Adorno’s model. Without knowing a lot about Korean dramas, Korean dramas seem to be “tailored for consumption by the masses” (Adorno 12). Korean production companies probably plan to have large transnational audiences without having to provide the labor of translating their dramas. User contributions are expressions of individuality, for example when Bjohnsonwon expressed pride at knowing that they had “a small part” in seeing a drama’s rising popularity. However, the labor that users provide is mostly interchangeable, translation and segmentation can be done by any other user to largely the same effect. This belief that the labor users provide can somehow be unique to the individual, like when users choose funny sub-team names, is what I believe to be the ‘conformity’ that replaces ‘consciousness’ that Adorno describes (Adorno 17). Users no longer willingly provide labor by conforming to the expectations of the community to contribute for the greater good.
On the other hand, the power to subtitle and translate offers fans space for subversion. If Adorno suggests that the culture industry ultimately serves to prevent individuals from acting autonomously, then Viki would be a bad example. The very nature of the labor that users provide is autonomous and independent because it is unpaid. It seems like Fiske’s model of the two interdependent sub economies can explain these differences. The Viki translator is a consumer, while also literally a producer of meaning. As a result, the “producers and distributors of a program can exert some, if limited influence….over the meanings and pleasures of the audience” (Fiske 540). Consumers have power to decide what shows succeed during the time that Fiske writes, but translators for Viki for further by having the power to decide what the characters even say.
I’m interested to understand where sites of resistance and subversion may appear in Korean dramas. It seems to me like the culture industry is not strictly top-down, nor is it totally homogenizing. However, I do not currently understand the extend that subtitling has to be subversive. That’s not to say that I believe the Korean culture industries lack sites of resistance. Holland’s music examples could be one example of resistance through consumer interpretation…
The Politics of K-Pop 