Female Empowerment and Radical Empathy for the Sustainability of Creative Industries: The Case of K-Pop

Ingyu Oh (), Kyeong-Jun Kim and Chris Rowley
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Ingyu Oh: Faculty of Global Engagement, Kansai Gaidai University, Osaka 573-1001, Japan
Kyeong-Jun Kim: Department of Urban Sociology, University of Seoul, Seoul 02592, Republic of Korea
Chris Rowley: Kellogg College, Oxford University, Oxford OX2 6PN, UK

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-18

Abstract: Contrary to the critical understanding of the cultural and/or creative industry that unduly emphasizes demoralized commercial activities of profit-maximizing, accompanied by the concomitant destruction of individual self-realization, the 21st century perception of the industry highlights its potentials for both creativity and more importantly, sustainability. The global success of Korean pop music (K-pop) unlocks a new possibility for the creative industry in a postcolonial country, with a newly constructed value chain that strategically allows female empowerment through radical empathy, a concept that bridges social empathy among formerly oppressed groups with their new political opportunities of political struggles. Based on survey data and structural equation modeling, this paper empirically corroborates a theorized conceptual link between participation in the K-pop industry and the resulting radical empathy among female fans toward industrial sustainability.

Keywords: sustainability; female empowerment; radical empathy; K-pop; cultural industry; creative industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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