User:Zecharixs/sandbox

One potential topic is the trainee system. The current part about trainees is only 2 paragraphs. It may be worth delving deeper into the reasons for the trainee system, success rates, and pros and cons for the trainees themselves. Another topic is the role of the government in promoting K-Pop. There's only 1 paragraph on the topic, and the specific initiatives and activities the government has undertaken to export K-Pop should be researched. The last topic is the reasons for the relative lack of success in the Western markets and evaluating the strategies the entertainment companies and/or government are employing to address this. Beyond a mention of the lack of success, a deeper analysis is not discussed on Wikipedia.

The Ministry was created to invest in and support the entertainment industry, as Korea needed new areas of growth in the wake of the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s. President Kim Dae Jung put forth industrial policies supporting entertainment with the same regard as traditional industrial sectors such as manufacturing. Investments were made in both infrastructure and technology to support K-Pop, including concert halls and visual effects technology. In addition, government regulation of karaoke bars favored K-Pop. In more recent years, there has been a focus on developing soft power; the Ministry believes that by promoting Korean culture abroad, exports of other goods and services will also increase. As part of those efforts to move beyond developing a domestic industry and toward international success, the Ministry established an advisory committee and announced an international training school. In recent years, direct financial support has increased. In 2013, the Ministry allocated 319 billion won (280 million USD) for direct support of Hallyu (Korean Wave). Cultural exports have been increasing at a rate of 10 percent yearly as a result of these efforts.

Criticisms

Despite the large amounts of money the government provides for Hallyu, the K-Pop industry, the most internationally well-known part of Hallyu has criticized the Ministry's efforts. Many industries such as fashion and food have lobbied the government for inclusion in the Hallyu budget, and politicians and the bureaucracy also have varying interests in how the budget is distributed. These factors have fractured the budget for K-Pop. In addition, these efforts have not alleviated the regulatory red tape for the industry. The process of renting concert venues from local governments in particular has been a point of contention.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/04/13/399414351/how-the-south-korean-government-made-k-pop-a-thing

https://www.pri.org/stories/2013-11-30/how-korean-bureaucrats-turned-k-pop-national-symbol

https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/e-journal/articles/oh_lee_0.pdf