• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.215-262
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• 2021

This thesis focuses on Wandeuki and Elegant Lies - novels written by Kim Ryeo-reong and adapted into the film by Director Lee Han; this thesis analyzes the process of storytelling being transformed as the media is converted. Also, this thesis discusses cultural-political implications of transmedia storytelling where different narrative responses coexist concerning post-IMF family disorganization and "individualization." First of all, this thesis critically reviews existing discourses on the concept of transmedia storytelling and refers to 'transfictionality' the narratological concept of Marie-Laure Ryan in order to look into media conversion storytelling that starts from original novels. The novels Wandeuki and Elegant Lies show two aspects of "individualization" that adopts existential conditions of family disorganization. Wandeuki deviates from patriarchal family romance through self-discovery and exhibits loose family bond, which is something similar to companionship of close individuals. Elegant Lies shows individualization of pain by portraying a teenager who found herself completely isolated, while showing that it is impossible for the people left behind to mourn. On the other hand, director Lee Han's films and show stories in which family members, who are confronting family dissolution, rediscover and restore their families against family dissolution. The film promotes the expansion of family community through multicultural identity, and the film completes condolence of the people left behind by having the remaining families survive as survivors of suicide. The storyworld of the novels puts emphasis on 'self-discovery' of individual adolescents, while the storyworld of the movies puts emphasis on 'rediscovery of family'. Through transformation of storytelling - especially the redesigning of narrative structures called "modification" - transmedia storytelling shows that the relationship between media-converted texts is far from "faithful representation," but rather, shows conflicting themes and perspectives. With a reference point of 'the emergence of character' transmedia storytelling, which is predicated on the original work but aims to free itself from the original work by transforming storytelling through media conversion, opens up polyphonic storyworld by creating heterogeneous voices. In the post IMF-era, where uncertainty mounts over family dissolution and individualization, polyphonic storyworld created by transmedia storytelling provides an opportunity to experience disparate desires over individual freedom/risk and complacency toward community. We can call this the cultural-political implication of transmedia storytelling based on transferring, transcednding, and transforming.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.9-40
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• 2019

This study presents an investigation into South Korean films in the 1990s in the aspects of genre change and emotional reorganization. The 1990s witnessed a change of genres and a paradigm shift in the history of Korean films according to the revolutionary changes of the film industry structure and media environment. Believing that these changes had something to do with emotional changes driven by global capitalization symbolized by democratization in 1987 and the foreign currency crisis in 1998, the investigator analyzed the phenomena in film texts and examined the opportunities and context behind them. Unlike previous researches, this study made an approach to the history of Korean films in the 1990s with three points: first, this study focused on why the romantic comedy genre emerged in the 1990s and what stages its formation underwent since there had been no profound discussions about them; secondly, this study analyzed the biggest hits during the transitional period from 1987~1999 to figure out the mainstream genres and emotions during that period since these hits would provide texts to show the genre domain and public taste in a symbolic way; and finally, this study grew out of the separate investigation approach between melodramas and romantic comedies and looked into an emotional structure to encompass both genres to make a more broad and dynamic approach to South Korean films in the 1990s. History flows continuously without severance from previous times. When there is attention paid to inflection points and opportunities in the continuum, it can show the dynamics and structures of changes. This research led to the following conclusions: the mainstream genre of South Korean films had been melodramas until the 1980s. The old convention had been kept to offset or suture contradictions and excessive elements deviant from the structural consistency. Here, the structural consistency refers to no compliance to rational regulations or trade. The process of genre reorganization in the 1990s happened while securing some distance from the convention of making the structural consistency a sacrifice. The direction was to reinforce control through reasonable rationalism and logic of capital. It developed into romance, which would start with comedy to keep distance from the objects through laughter, heighten the level of remarks, and expand criticality, symbolize emotions with taste items, and build through the logic of mutual consensus and practical trade. In the 1990s, the South Korean films thus developed in a direction of moving away from the narrative of urgent pathos based on unconditional familism. It was on the same track as the entry of the South Korean society into the upgraded orbits of democracy and capitalism as the twins of modern rationalism since the latter part of the 1980s.