- Overview
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This book fully dissects BTS fandom and ARMY. The history of how BTS, who started out on the outskirts of K-pop, became the world's most famous boy band is described along with the band's fan group, ARMY. It examines how ARMY bridged the distance between themselves and existing K-pop culture and firmly placed BTS in the global mainstream music world.
- Book Intro
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In the midst of daily BTS news updates, BTS fandom group ARMY is fully dissected in this book. The history of how BTS, who started out on the outskirts of K-pop, became the world's most famous boy band is described along with the band's fan group, ARMY. It examines how ARMY bridged the distance between themselves and existing K-pop culture and firmly placed BTS in the global mainstream music world. It describes how ARMY compromised and negotiated with mass media, which had existing cultural power, to create the cultural status of BTS.
Instead of a critical theory book, this book is a kind of archive that captures through detailed examples what kind of effects the dynamics of fandom, especially the group ARMY, has on the contemporary cultural topography. For ARMY, it is an organized record of their activities, and for people curious about the fan group, it has value as a "full-scale dissection of ARMY." This book gives an opportunity to think about how we can build a desirable relationship in our field by examining the potential of ARMY or "ARMY culture," which made BTS into a "global" artist in just 6 years following their debut.
The author is a member of ARMY, once saying, "I thank ARMY for accepting me as part of the fervent and dynamic world called 'ARMY'." So one may wonder, "Can ARMY book written by ARMY see ARMY objectively?" Well, the author has never once forgotten her mission as a cultural critic while showing her affection for ARMY.
- About the Author
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Lee Jeeheng
Lee Jeeheng (F) lectures on films at Chung-Ang University while acting as a member of Film Rating Subcommittee at the Korea Media Rating Board. She has a Bachelor of Science from Ewha Womans University, a Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and a PhD in Film Studies from the Graduate School of Advanced Imaging Science, Multimedia & Film at Chung-Ang University. She has worked as visiting professor in the Graduate School of Cinematic Content at Dankook University, full-time lecturer in the Department of Multimedia Engineering at Hannam University, and lecturer at Yonsei University. Her PhD thesis was titled "Catastrophe and Film: Structure of Catastrophic Feeling in 21st Century Film" (2015). She is interested in post-humanism and the relationship between film culture and modernism and her research is focused on popular culture in the new media era.
