• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.53-98
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• 2021

This paper examines the ways in which Hollywood feature films produced and widely circulated with the establishment of the studio system was consumed in the ethnically segregated Korean movie theaters in Kyǒngsǒng in the 1920s. Focusing on how those theaters appropriated what Hollywood represented, this paper has three objectives. First, from a historical and economic perspective, I will historicize the emergence of so-called prestige pictures and how movies became a branded product in that process. Second, I will also loot at how Chosǒn Theater, one of the earliest movie theaters in the Korean-resident area in Kyǒngsǒng who sought to be a prestigious movie palace actively exploited Hollywood brand, by foregrounding its Paramount connection, in particular. Lastly, through a close reading of weekly programmes and handbills, I will examine how these promotional print materials, as an intermediating medium, helped to supplement the audiences' viewing of Hollywood movies while creating loyal audiences.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.99-130
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• 2021

This paper examines printed materials such as weekly newsletters and leaflets issued by Dansungsa, a movie theater in Colonial Korea for a promotional purpose as independent modern media. During the 1920s and 1930s, in tandem with the development of the incipient printing houses in Namchon, Gyeongseong, including Suyeongsa, Dansungsa published promotional prints including weekly newsletters and leaflets in a serial manner to compete with Joseon-gukjang and Umigwan. As these materials contain various information including movie programmes, spectatorship, distributional channels, and promotional strategies that bears witness to theater culture of this time, this paper focuses on the dynamics where not only text and image but also audiences and filmic texts are mediated one another. To this end, the paper has three objectives. First, I argue that weekly newsletters and leaflets can be considered as 'flickering media' that meddles in text and image culture. Second, Dansungsa's promotional prints interpellated film audiences as a loyal fan group while mediating audiences and filmic texts. In doing so, I suggest that these print materials established its own cultural domain differentiated from filmic culture itself. Third, these ephemeral materials contributed to narrowing the gap between colonial Joseon and the World in its imaginary geography through the function of mediation.