Visual Music: K-Pop’s ‘CAWMAN’ Effect on a Transnational Music Subculture

Elina Luise Haessler

doi:10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2022.5.8.124

Visual Music: K-Pop’s ‘CAWMAN’ Effect on a Transnational Music Subculture

Authors

Elina Luise Haessler Independent researcher, Donegal, Ireland Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2022.5.8.124

Keywords:

online social musicking, popular music, visual music, transnational subculture, semiosis, ethnomusicology, K-Pop, Korean studies, SM Entertainment

Abstract

South Korean popular music or K-Pop has risen phenomenally in popular music industries around the globe in little under three decades through its unique production method of embracing a combination of both musical and visual artforms. Having gained mass international popularity, K-Pop has established the characteristics of a subculture. The visual emphasis K-Pop producers place in their productions lays particularly in the foreground to its transnational attraction. Primarily in the form of music videos, narratives and aesthetics becoming communicable beyond language mediation.

Using a semiotic theoretical analysis, this paper critically analyses the creation, sustainment and effects of ‘visual music’ as a foregrounding component of this transnational music subculture. To do so, the focus lies on K-Pop production company SM Entertainment’s recently established CAWMAN genre, a method of producing music media based on Cartoon, Animation, Webtoon, Motion Graphics, Avatar and Novel. With K-Pop’s central portal of communication and K-Popular practices being the Internet, this paper explores the effects and critical roles of this new genre of visual music in bringing people together across the globe.

Author Biography

Elina Luise Haessler, Independent researcher, Donegal, Ireland

Elina Haessler is a recent MA graduate of University Limerick, Ireland and BAMUS graduate of University College Cork, Ireland. Having been a fan of K-Pop since 2013, it was a popular music seminar at the University of Göttingen, Germany, which drew her interest to this academic field, later leading to an undergraduate dissertation which critically engaged with K-Pop’s production industry of so-called ‘idols’. During her MA in Ethnomusicology, she engaged with this music in various areas including ritual studies, fandom and subcultural studies and semiotics, leading to a dissertation exploring the multidimensional ‘concept’ of K-Pop.

As Elina prepares to enter a near-future PhD programme, her focus continues to lie in that of popular music with particular interest in exploring topics of female idolism in the ‘K-industry’, as well as investigating the boundaries and particularities of K-Rock in relation to its highly successful K-Pop competitor.

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Published

15.07.2021

Issue

No. 8 (2022): Fighting for the Attention: Music and Art on Social Media I

Section

Articles

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How to Cite

Visual Music: K-Pop’s ‘CAWMAN’ Effect on a Transnational Music Subculture. (2021). INSAM Journal of Contemporary Music, Art and Technology, 8, 124–149. https://doi.org/10.51191/issn.2637-1898.2022.5.8.124