ABSTRACT

Webtoons are fast becoming a new part of the expanding digital media industries, with interest in this niche comic form increasing on a monthly basis across a range of mobile apps and online websites. The major South Korean web service provider Naver has developed a pioneering global webtoon platform called ‘Line Webtoon’, which is accessible across multiple markets and in multiple languages throughout East Asia. Given this reach and its impact on cultural transactions, this chapter argues that one of Naver’s most significant, yet overlooked, contributions to the thriving digital environment across Asia is made by the amateur user-translators, or transcreators, who localize webtoon content across 32 different languages. Seeking to explain how this inherently transnational cultural practice is undergoing rapid transformation, this chapter examines how a coterie of volunteer translators are generating value-co-creation for Naver, the webtoon industry and the global media industry more broadly through their digital transcreation activities. In so doing, the chapter engages with the concept of cultural transactions and the critical role of intermediaries in furnishing exchange across cultures.