Showcasing Hallyu Tracker: Exploring the possibilities and limitations of Digital Humanities

This Project Showcase will reflect on and share research results of the project on mapping and measuring Hallyu soft power developed as a part of the bigger research Mapping Global Impacts of Hallyu, The Korean Wave, funded by the Korean Foundation in 2024. The project employs Digital Humanities approaches to advance policy-oriented studies on Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, that refers to the current global spread and impact of creative industries products specific to South Korean popular culture on different parts of the world. It aims to explore the Korean Wave as a highly complex global phenomenon that has different layers of manifestations across multiple stages of its existence from production to consumption in transnational contexts. The project employs data-driven and machine learning approaches combined with traditional qualitative research to measure, map, and predict the spread, reach, intensity and impacts of the Korean Wave across different geo-locations to benefit a more informed, strategic, and evidence-based approach to Hallyu national policy and international diplomacy. The Project Showcase introduce Hallyu Tacker, mapping application to tease out insights on geographic and temporal patterns and trends in the global expansion of Hallyu across different countries around the world. Playing with Hallyu Tracker as a demonstration of the mapping application the session will offer reflections on contributions of the project to the field of Digital Humanities. By demonstrating the power of digital tools and methods to analyze and understand complex cultural phenomena like Hallyu, the Hallyu Tracker will reveal and expose the power, potential as well as limitation of quantification, visualization and mapping of qualitative knowledge. Exploring Hallyu Tacker app as data storytelling tool, my presentation will explore complex relationships of data-driven research creative outputs as a digital creative praxis methodology on the one hand, and as an independent media object projecting its own narratives for target audiences on the other hand.