ABSTRACT
South Korea rapidly achieved its economic modernization in less than four decades, a phenomenon commonly known as the Miracle on the Han River. Considering that music is a product of larger structural conditions, it is important to acknowledge that K-pop was incepted when Korea was in the middle of state-led aggressive globalization campaign. While there are a few scholars who have examined a contemporary liberalization of the media industry, their arguments are not successful in explaining how governmental interventions have been an integral part of Hallyu. In order to better examine how seemingly contradictory systems of economic, political, and social governance, that is state-developmentalism, Confucianism, and neoliberalism, coexist and support each other in the K-pop industry, the author theoretically contends that, in the current Hallyu scholarship, there is a general misconception of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is far from a retreat of central governments; rather it is market-driven state reform in order to guarantee a maximum functionality of market principles.
