ABSTRACT
Netflix is a significant promoter of K-dramas and expands K-dramas’ speedy distribution and shareability to broader Western audiences. This chapter delves into a new development of K-dramas along with Netflix, looking specifically at how the platform and K-dramas combine to generate increasing attention to Western viewers that seems quite different from how the first wave of K-dramas swung across Asia. Two recent Netflix Originals, Mr. Sunshine and Kingdom, were analyzed for the case study. Western viewers of these K-dramas on Netflix paid attention to identifying national and cultural specificities embedded in the historical narratives of the two K-dramas as conceptualizing as the indication of transculturality processed in asymmetric global media flows. Transculturality embedded in two K-drama texts provokes symbolic and local cultural sentiment enabling active perception in hybrid genre styles and multiple layers of the polysemic storyline.
