The East Asian Studies Center embarked on a new collaboration with the Korea and the World (KATW) team to develop a series of podcast interviews in 2021-2022. Korea and the World is a podcast that interviews academics, professionals and intellectuals living and working in South Korea on current political, economic and societal issues. The second episode in the series is now available.

For this episode, the KATW team sat down with Prof. Stephanie Choi to learn more about the relationship between K-Pop idols and their fans. Prof. Choi explained how fans act as both promoters as well as regulators of their idols’ activities, and about the role that intimacy plays in this relationship. She also discussed the origins of fan groups in Korea and their evolution over the decades; the kinds of labor fans engage in to ensure the success of their idol; the rules dictating fans-idol interactions; and the services that idols provide in return to their fans.

Stephanie Choi is Adjunct Assistant Professor in East Asian Studies at New York University. She earned her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She also holds an M.A. in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University and a degree in Korean Music from Seoul National University. Interviews with Stephanie Choi have been featured in The New Yorker, NBC News, the Korea Herald, and the Korea Times, among others.

Listeners can find the podcast on the KATW website, on iTunes, YouTube, or via RSS.

This episode was supported in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.