THE ROLE OF THE DRAMA INTERPRETATION INDUSTRY IN THE TRANSNATIONAL RECEPTION OF KOREAN TV SERIES IN CHINA

Resumen

This article examines how the drama interpretation industry on video-streaming platforms influences the transnational reception of Korean TV series in China. Combined with new background music and the creators’ interpretations, drama interpretation videos extract drama clips from the long episodes and reproduce hours-long TV series into 3-5 minute short-form videos. With the rise of this industry, a lack of studies has noticed the phenomenon and its influence on transnational audience reception. Thus, this study is pioneering research to address how interpretative commentary videos affect audience reception of international TV series in China, how Chinese audiences engage with Korean TV content on user-generated platforms, and whether dissemination of clip-sharing on user-generated platforms benefits or detriments Korean TV series. Adopting the Korean drama Glory as a case, this study used qualitative content analysis, augmented by semi-structured interviews, to examine these user-generated interpretive videos and their associated comments on Douyin and Xiaohongshu. This study found that video creators replaced obscure terminologies with other terms familiar to audiences within a Chinese cultural context, and viewers mainly discussed characters in the Korean drama Glory without mentioning Korean culture or cultural differences. Therefore, this study argues that interpretive videos can be regarded as a form of user-generated localization of international TV series, making foreign dramas understandable to local audiences and helping with the dramas’ dissemination, while this re-production of TV series, which eliminates cultural differences, is detrimental to the spread of foreign culture.