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Pop-Culture in East Asia
Popular Culture in East Asia has risen to international prominence since the early 2000's up until recent times. East Asia doesn't have a coherent representation of the region. Differences between the individual countries mean that they all have unique variations to their popular culture. East Asian popular culture has gained universal recognition especially within its music industry after a Korean Wave Convention KCON was held in the United states for the first time in 2012. In the same year, "Gangman Style" by artist PSY topped the charts in over 30 countries. The music video, which won a MTV Music Video Award displayed stylised visuals, entertaining choreography as well as mashing together different genres and Western Stylistic features.

Western Features and Adaptions
The recent globalisation and economic development has resulted in a hybrid popular culture scene fusing Western stylistic features with East Asia's cultural customs and beliefs. The expansion of East Asia's popular culture is due to a new market of 'rock aesthetic' heavily influenced from the U.S. American as well as European folk music and art has had an overwhelming impact on the production of East Asia's entertainment scene. Tom Dixon states that "Pop music is accepted first of all as a foreign influence replacing traditional music, it is then internalized, adapted to the native culture and pushed back into the wider world as a new style of pop which has been culturally filtered." Influences have been stemmed from the American ‘dance-hit’ and the Soviet-Russian ‘Party song’. Both styles heavily present in Chinese and Korean pop music. Western stylistic features have been adapted differently from individual countries, appropriated to fit within their cultural values and beliefs.

Economic and consumerism growth
From the early 2000's to now, the region of East Asia has experienced a major boom in its consumerism due to the growth of it economies. The globalisation and economic growth of the region has connected East Asia to the rest of the world creating a multinational notion of popular culture. America's popular culture remains a prominent attraction within the global market of popular culture. Stemming away from America's pattern, East Asian companies and alliances started to introduce a regional market for culture to "provide cultural content to the imagery of the region". To add to this, East Asia’s urban middle class has helped generate demand for art, fashion and entertainment, supporting the movement of popular culture and spreading common practises and behaviours. They have also been responsible for the rapid urbanisation and consumerism, increasing the demand for the production of goods and cultural streams such as department stores and leisure facilities. Significantly, the majority of East Asian middle class citizens live in the cities, generating employment and having a greater access to things such as entertainment, and health care services. Specifically, Japan's economic development in the 1960s saw a huge boost in cultural exchange to improve Japan's reputation through its media culture. In 1988 the Takeshita government created a discussion panel on international cultural exchange to export their TV programs to other Asian countries. Then in 1991, the MOFA and Ministry of Post and Telecommunications established the Japan Media Communications Centre to ensure developing countries received Japanese TV programs. This has prompted the expansion of its popular culture.

Rise of Regionalism
Regional formation in East Asia has had a significant impact on East Asia's media and popular culture. Geographically, East Asia is a large region containing multiple countries of a variety of languages and cultural beliefs. Countries include Mongolia, the Russian Far East, the Korean Peninsula, China, Japan, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, plus islands such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. Following the financial crisis of 1997-98 the need to become more politically and economically stable meant that sub-regions within Asia grew closer together moving away from American and Soviet Union political and international power and instead, combining political and economic strength.

Music
The music industry from countries such as Korea, Japan and China has become one of the world's largest music platforms. These music genres include C-Pop, Mandopop, Cantopop Hokkien Pop, J-Pop and K-Pop. Since the beginning of the 21st century these industries have been gaining international success, surpassing the United States as the world's largest music market. For the first time in 2012 a Korean Wave Convention, KCON was held in the United States. In the same year, "Gangman Style" by artist PSY topped the charts in over 30 countries. The music video, which won a MTV Music Video Award displayed stylised visuals, entertaining choreography as well as mashing together different genres and cultures. This style is associated with a lot of music videos and media from the region.