The 10 Most-Cited Hallyu Studies Since 2023
Ten Korean Wave papers published since 2023 that other scholars have cited most
Citation counts do not measure quality; they show which questions other scholars most often pick up. Ranking Hallyu papers published since January 2023 by their OpenAlex citations gives a fairly clear picture of what the field is preoccupied with right now.
First, five of the ten are about platforms: TikTok's entry into Korea, Weverse fan communities, Netflix and local producers, the Foreign Ministry's Facebook page, and Hallyu content on YouTube. Treating the Korean Wave as something that happens on platforms—rather than simply as content exports—has become the mainstream view. Two of these papers are by Dal Yong Jin, the leading voice in Hallyu platform studies.
Second, tourism and marketing research weighs heavily. Top entries ask whether K-pop consumption values drive travel intentions, whether a search-based Hallyu index predicts arrivals, and why fans stay loyal to a telecom brand BTS endorses. These treat fandom as a measurable demand factor.
At the other end are studies that see the same fans very differently: Australian K-pop consumers wrestling with accusations of cultural appropriation and authorising their own consumption, and Mexican fans negotiating local racial ideas by emulating female idols. Where marketing studies see responsive consumers, these qualitative studies see people building identities amid moral and racial tensions. Read together, they show how much the phrase 'Hallyu effect' leaves out.
The limits are clear too. All ten come from English-language international journals. Korean-journal articles tend to be under-counted in OpenAlex citation data, so this list does not fully reflect domestic scholarship. Papers from early 2023 have also had more time to accumulate citations.
Between Cultural Appreciation and Cultural Appropriation: Self-Authorizing the Consumption of Cultural Difference
Based on in-depth interviews conducted between 2017 and 2022 with 38 non-Korean K-pop consumers in a large Australian city, plus forums, social media and news coverage. Fans manage the tension between 'cultural appreciation' and accusations of appropriation through 'self-authorization'—granting themselves permission to keep consuming—via four strategies: reforming, restraining, recontextualizing and rationalizing. It translates the moral friction inside fandoms (terms like 'Koreaboo') into consumer-research theory, and appeared in the field's flagship journal.
Parasocial relationships and social media interactions: building brand credibility and loyalty
A purposive sample of consumers who bought BTS-endorsed telecom products and services, analysed with PLS path modelling. Every hypothesised path held: social-media interaction raises fans' self-disclosure, self-disclosure builds parasocial relationships, and those relationships feed perceived trustworthiness of the endorser, then brand credibility and loyalty. It traces, step by step, how attachment to a foreign star becomes equity for a local brand.
K-pop TikTok: TikTok's expansion into South Korea, TikTok Stage, and platformed glocalization
Traces how TikTok, after several failed attempts to enter Korea while stigmatised as a 'vulgar Chinese app', finally gained ground through the 'TikTok Stage' event series, which filled gaps in the K-pop market left by the pandemic. The authors call this 'platformed glocalization'—a platform adapting to a strong domestic market culture—and highlight the 'promotional labour' of stars and fans that made it work. It is a case of local culture taming a platform rather than the reverse.
The rise of digital platforms as a soft power apparatus in the New Korean Wave era
A discourse analysis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Facebook posts from 1 January to 31 December 2022, examining how the government uses social media as a soft-power tool. Jin argues that domestic digital platforms have become a main vehicle of cultural diplomacy in the 'New Korean Wave', while critically examining the tensions between those private platforms and the state. A useful corrective to reading Hallyu simply as a government PR success.
Effects of Online Fan Community Interactions on Well-Being and Sense of Virtual Community
A PLS-SEM analysis of 202 survey responses from BTS fans worldwide on Weverse. Pandemic loneliness increased online interaction with other fans but had no significant effect on parasocial relationships with the artists; both interaction and parasocial ties raised mental well-being and sense of virtual community. Among paid subscribers, however, parasocial relationships did not significantly affect well-being—possibly, the authors suggest, because fans saw the bond as transactional and cancellable.
Music-induced tourism: Korean pop (K-pop) music consumption values and their consequences
Identifies three domains of K-pop consumption value—character and visual performance, imitation and attachment, and message and vocal—and tests a structural model linking them to tourism outcomes. Surprisingly, character and visual performance had no significant effect on emotional involvement or reflection, while the music itself built familiarity with Korea and drove intentions to buy Korean products and travel there. Fans' responses also varied little by sex, age or ethnicity.
A Raciosemiotics of Appropriation: Transnational Performance of Raciogender among Mexican K-Pop Fans
Drawing on fieldwork at Mexico City K-pop conventions in the summers of 2016 and 2018, interviews and fans' social media, Yoo analyses how Mexican fans take up and perform the 'characterological figure' of the female K-pop idol. The idol reads both as hegemonic cosmopolitan femininity and as an exotic racial Other; by approximating her, fans distinguish themselves from other Mexican youth as people who know intra-Asian differences. It shows why local histories—here, anti-Chinese racism in Mexico—are essential to reading overseas fandoms.
Consumption of pop culture and tourism demand: Through the lens of herding behaviour
Models social-media 'herding' as two-step communication measured through Google and YouTube search volume, and turns it into a new index of online consumption of Korean cultural products. Applied to monthly arrivals from 10 countries between 2013 and 2019, the Hallyu index significantly predicts tourist arrivals. It offers a way to size the Korean Wave from search data rather than surveys, which the authors present as a proxy usable for other destinations.
Netflix’s effects on the Korean Wave: power relations between local cultural industries and global OTT platforms
Combining critical political economy with a sociocultural approach, Jin examines how Netflix has shifted genres and industry structure in Korea's cultural industries. He asks whether Netflix entered Korea because of the Korean Wave, whether local firms are changing production norms to fit Netflix, and whether the resulting genre shifts erode local specificity. A key reference on the changing power relations between a global OTT platform and local creators and users.
The role of social media engagement in the purchase intention of South Korea's popular media (Hallyu) tourism package: based on uses and gratifications theory
An online survey grounded in uses and gratifications theory tests whether seeking entertainment and information from Hallyu content on YouTube leads, via social-media engagement, to intentions to buy Hallyu tour packages. Passive engagement had neither direct nor indirect effects on purchase intention, and Asian and Western respondents differed in how gratifications related to passive engagement. Simply watching does not translate into buying a trip—a practical point for Hallyu tourism marketing.
How papers were chosen
OpenAlex API, type:article published from 2023-01-01, queried separately (title, title+abstract and full-text search) for hallyu, korean wave, k-pop, kpop, korean drama, k-drama, squid game, webtoon, korean film, korean cinema, BTS, korean popular culture and similar terms; top 50 by citations per query, merged and deduplicated. Titles and abstracts were checked by hand to drop false positives (a medical segmentation model called 'BTS', the 'Squid Game Optimizer' algorithm, a maths lesson using Squid Game, parasitology papers), a book review (of Transnational Hallyu), and a paper whose abstract could not be obtained (Lee & Jeong 2023, Tourism Management Perspectives). Citation counts from OpenAlex as of 2026-10-09.
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How this article was made: read official statements, court/regulator records and at least two independent outlets; community posts are used only as attention signals. Written by Hallyu Wiki editors with AI assistance — check the sources.