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Korean Wave
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Korean Wave
The Korean Wave, or hallyu (Korean: 한류; ⓘ), is the dramatic rise in global interest in South Korean popular culture since the 1990s—led by K-pop, K-dramas, and films, with keystone successes including K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink, the Oscar-winning film Parasite (2019), the television series Squid Game (2021) and the animated film KPop Demon Hunters (2025). The Korean Wave has been recognized as a form of soft power and as an important economic asset for South Korea, generating revenue through exports and tourism.
After the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the end of military censorship over the South Korean entertainment industry, the country emerged as a major exporter of popular culture. The rise of satellite media in the late 1990s helped spread K-dramas and Korean cinema into East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. Chinese journalists coined the term "Korean Wave" (Chinese: 韩流; pinyin: hánliú) in 1999. During the 2000s, hallyu evolved into a global phenomenon, expanding rapidly into the rest of Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. By 2008, the value of cultural exports from South Korea surpassed that of cultural imports for the first time.. The advent of social media and the internet helped the Korean entertainment industry reach overseas audiences and gain the endorsement of the South Korean government.
The term "hallyu" (한류; 韓流) is a neologism composed of two root words: han (한; 韓), meaning "Korean", and ryu (류; 流), meaning "flow", "wave", or "trend". On 19 November 1999, Beijing Youth Daily published the first known use of the term "Korean Wave" (Chinese: 韩流; pinyin: hánliú; lit. 'Korean wave') in an article describing the "zeal of Chinese audiences for Korean TV dramas and pop songs". Other terms used at the time included "Korean tide", "Korean heat", and "Korean wind". In China, the term "Han fever" was also used, comparing the phenomenon to the avian flu pandemic in the country. The term entered common usage following the airing of the romance K-drama Winter Sonata, which was particularly successful in Japan.
Hallyu refers to the international diffusion of South Korean culture since the 1990s, following the end of military rule and the liberalization of the popular culture industry. The term primarily refers to the spread of Korean television, pop music, film, and fashion, but can also include animation, video games, technology, literature, cosmetics, and food. While the first generation of hallyu in the late 1990s to early 2000s remained confined to Asia and referred to the popularity of Korean dramas and film on the continent, the second generation, or hallyu 2.0, was driven primarily by the popularity of K-pop distributed on online platforms like YouTube. Both "hallyu" and "Korean Wave" were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021.
Under the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee, South Korean mass media underwent a process of rapid expansion, despite facing increasing control and censorship from the government. As part of Park's development plans, the first commercial radio and television stations opened in the early 1960s and were subject to strict censorship under the Broadcasting Ethics Committee (Korean: 방송윤리위원회). This brief expansion ended in 1972, when Park enacted the Yushin Constitution which broadly expanded his powers and codified his de facto dictatorial rule. The enactment of the Yushin Constitution coincided with a broad crackdown on the South Korean culture industry against what Park alleged was the influence of "foreign decadent culture". Following Park's death and the 1979 coup d'état of December Twelfth, the military regime of Chun Doo-hwan enacted additional restrictions over the media. In 1980, Chun forced the merger of all 29 private broadcasters into the state-owned Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), creating a state-led media monopoly.
As a part of the decolonization process in South Korea, imports of all Japanese media were banned in 1945. Despite this ban, Japanese media was still widely distributed and pirated in South Korea, with both state broadcasters and individual bootleggers being found guilty of illegal importation. The signing of the Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration of 1998 ended this ban, and it was gradually lifted across four stages between 1998 and 2004. To protect the South Korean culture industry, the South Korean Ministry of Culture received a substantial budget increase, allowing for the creation of hundreds of culture industry departments in universities nationwide. It has justified its financial support for hallyu, which it estimated to be worth US$83.2 billion in 2012, by linking it to South Korea's export-driven economy.
The first generation of the Korean Wave, also called hallyu 1.0, was the initial rise in popularity of Korean popular culture within nearby Asian countries. The first generation began in China during the late 1990s, and consisted primarily of the spread of Korean television programming.
In 1990, the National Assembly granted a broadcasting license to the regional Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), becoming the first private television station since the forced nationalization of private broadcasters in 1980. In December 1991, the National Assembly passed the Cable Television Act which directed the Ministry of Information to provide permits to twenty prospective cable television program providers. The providers were selected in August 1993, and cable television services began in March, 1995. With the liberalization of the South Korean television market, a greater number of Korean programs started to be exported abroad. These media exports were first exported to China, after the two countries formally established diplomatic relations in 1992. Although Jealousy (1992) was the first K-drama broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV), the 1997 broadcasts of the K-drama First Love and Star in My Heart in China are generally considered the start of the Korean Wave. Compounding the foreign interest in Korean television programs, countries throughout East Asia began opening their television markets to foreign countries in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1970s, imported television programs made up less than 1 percent of all airtime on CCTV, while by the late 1990s, that number would rise to 20–30 percent. In Vietnam, Korean television made up more than half of all imported programming in 1988.
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Korean Wave
The Korean Wave, or hallyu (Korean: 한류; ⓘ), is the dramatic rise in global interest in South Korean popular culture since the 1990s—led by K-pop, K-dramas, and films, with keystone successes including K-pop groups BTS and Blackpink, the Oscar-winning film Parasite (2019), the television series Squid Game (2021) and the animated film KPop Demon Hunters (2025). The Korean Wave has been recognized as a form of soft power and as an important economic asset for South Korea, generating revenue through exports and tourism.
After the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the end of military censorship over the South Korean entertainment industry, the country emerged as a major exporter of popular culture. The rise of satellite media in the late 1990s helped spread K-dramas and Korean cinema into East Asia and parts of Southeast Asia. Chinese journalists coined the term "Korean Wave" (Chinese: 韩流; pinyin: hánliú) in 1999. During the 2000s, hallyu evolved into a global phenomenon, expanding rapidly into the rest of Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. By 2008, the value of cultural exports from South Korea surpassed that of cultural imports for the first time.. The advent of social media and the internet helped the Korean entertainment industry reach overseas audiences and gain the endorsement of the South Korean government.
The term "hallyu" (한류; 韓流) is a neologism composed of two root words: han (한; 韓), meaning "Korean", and ryu (류; 流), meaning "flow", "wave", or "trend". On 19 November 1999, Beijing Youth Daily published the first known use of the term "Korean Wave" (Chinese: 韩流; pinyin: hánliú; lit. 'Korean wave') in an article describing the "zeal of Chinese audiences for Korean TV dramas and pop songs". Other terms used at the time included "Korean tide", "Korean heat", and "Korean wind". In China, the term "Han fever" was also used, comparing the phenomenon to the avian flu pandemic in the country. The term entered common usage following the airing of the romance K-drama Winter Sonata, which was particularly successful in Japan.
Hallyu refers to the international diffusion of South Korean culture since the 1990s, following the end of military rule and the liberalization of the popular culture industry. The term primarily refers to the spread of Korean television, pop music, film, and fashion, but can also include animation, video games, technology, literature, cosmetics, and food. While the first generation of hallyu in the late 1990s to early 2000s remained confined to Asia and referred to the popularity of Korean dramas and film on the continent, the second generation, or hallyu 2.0, was driven primarily by the popularity of K-pop distributed on online platforms like YouTube. Both "hallyu" and "Korean Wave" were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021.
Under the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee, South Korean mass media underwent a process of rapid expansion, despite facing increasing control and censorship from the government. As part of Park's development plans, the first commercial radio and television stations opened in the early 1960s and were subject to strict censorship under the Broadcasting Ethics Committee (Korean: 방송윤리위원회). This brief expansion ended in 1972, when Park enacted the Yushin Constitution which broadly expanded his powers and codified his de facto dictatorial rule. The enactment of the Yushin Constitution coincided with a broad crackdown on the South Korean culture industry against what Park alleged was the influence of "foreign decadent culture". Following Park's death and the 1979 coup d'état of December Twelfth, the military regime of Chun Doo-hwan enacted additional restrictions over the media. In 1980, Chun forced the merger of all 29 private broadcasters into the state-owned Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), creating a state-led media monopoly.
As a part of the decolonization process in South Korea, imports of all Japanese media were banned in 1945. Despite this ban, Japanese media was still widely distributed and pirated in South Korea, with both state broadcasters and individual bootleggers being found guilty of illegal importation. The signing of the Japan–South Korea Joint Declaration of 1998 ended this ban, and it was gradually lifted across four stages between 1998 and 2004. To protect the South Korean culture industry, the South Korean Ministry of Culture received a substantial budget increase, allowing for the creation of hundreds of culture industry departments in universities nationwide. It has justified its financial support for hallyu, which it estimated to be worth US$83.2 billion in 2012, by linking it to South Korea's export-driven economy.
The first generation of the Korean Wave, also called hallyu 1.0, was the initial rise in popularity of Korean popular culture within nearby Asian countries. The first generation began in China during the late 1990s, and consisted primarily of the spread of Korean television programming.
In 1990, the National Assembly granted a broadcasting license to the regional Seoul Broadcasting System (SBS), becoming the first private television station since the forced nationalization of private broadcasters in 1980. In December 1991, the National Assembly passed the Cable Television Act which directed the Ministry of Information to provide permits to twenty prospective cable television program providers. The providers were selected in August 1993, and cable television services began in March, 1995. With the liberalization of the South Korean television market, a greater number of Korean programs started to be exported abroad. These media exports were first exported to China, after the two countries formally established diplomatic relations in 1992. Although Jealousy (1992) was the first K-drama broadcast on China Central Television (CCTV), the 1997 broadcasts of the K-drama First Love and Star in My Heart in China are generally considered the start of the Korean Wave. Compounding the foreign interest in Korean television programs, countries throughout East Asia began opening their television markets to foreign countries in the 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1970s, imported television programs made up less than 1 percent of all airtime on CCTV, while by the late 1990s, that number would rise to 20–30 percent. In Vietnam, Korean television made up more than half of all imported programming in 1988.
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