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This article examines how Korean pop (K-pop) idol fans develop their public image through the construction of participatory culture. K-pop idol fans, mostly teenaged girls, have long-provoked criticism in Korean society due to their fanatic behaviours. In the late 2000s, however, the transnational popularity of K-pop idol groups encouraged the public to reconsider the negative stereotype of K-pop idol fandom. This social atmosphere is indebted to news journalism, which sheds light on the contribution of fan communities in the K-pop music industry. Donation activities are one of the main items that journalists focus on in covering idol fan communities. Through an analysis of news articles, this article argues that Korean idol fandom strategically employs donation activities in order to reshape stereotypes about idol fandom, reconnect with the public and redefine the notion of idol fandom in Korean society.

This study focuses on the BTS sensation, examining how three entities – digital networks, the K-pop industry, and fandom – have engaged in the production of an alternative global culture. Based on a multimodal critical discourse analysis of this rising cultural act, the current study pays attention to the dialectical interaction of digital transformation and cultural subjectivization in the contemporary music ecosystem. By integrating Manuel Castells’ notion of the network society into Stuart Hall’s articulation of cultural resistance, I consider BTS as a counter-hegemonic cultural formation from the periphery within the network society. I also argue that the BTS phenomenon has not only unveiled the ideological dimension of Korean cultural formations, but has also proposed new possibilities of non-western and peripheral societies and subjects in the globally networked cultural sphere.

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