Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
Use the "Filter by Track or Type of Session" or "Filter by Session Topic" dropdown to limit results by type. Some of the sessions are also color-coded: purple indicates performances, grey indicates paper forums, and orange indicates sessions which have been organized by one of the regional associations of IMS (ARLAC or IMSEA). (Sessions which are both IMS sessions and performances are only colored orange.)
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:34:54am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Perspectives on K-Pop and Music in Korean Media Session Chair: Cody Black | |
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A New Phase of South Korean Democratic Participation: K-pop Fandom, Young Women, and the Transformation of Protest Culture Washington University in St. Louis In December 2024, South Korean citizens organized large-scale yet peaceful rallies demanding then-President Yoon’s resignation after his declaration of martial law. Music played a visible role in the rallies, from collective singing to the use of K-pop light sticks and the recirculation of “Into the New World” (2007), the debut song of the prominent K-pop girl group Girls’ Generation. In this paper, I argue that K-pop and its largely female fandom practices have transformed South Korean protest culture by translating fan-based solidarity into political solidarity. I analyze how “Into the New World” came to function as a protest anthem and how fan-based cultural practices and responses to women’s political expression facilitated new forms of participation in protest movements. I demonstrate how contemporary protest practices differ from those of the Gwangju Uprising of 1980, a response to the military coup and martial law under Chun Doo-hwan. Citizens resisted state violence through armed struggle and protest songs, including the national anthem and “March for Our Beloved” (1981). Traumatic memories of this period have shaped later protest practices: rather than confronting authorities through physical conflict, contemporary protesters emphasize solidarity through collective, nonviolent expression. In the 2016 and 2024 impeachment rallies, “Into the New World” emerged as a powerful protest anthem. Its lyrics such as “Might be an unknown future with obstacles, but I won’t change” and “We can’t give up” were recontextualized as protest slogans, while K-pop light sticks, originally designed for concerts, were repurposed as visual symbols of collective presence. Young women with experience of affective solidarity within K-pop fandoms played a central role in generating political-affective solidarity across diverse backgrounds and sustaining mass participation. In addition to fan-based practices, women’s democratic engagement took shape under constraints on their political expression, as evidenced by the cyberbullying of female singers who implied political solidarity with protesters through fan-communication platforms. This study shows how “Into the New World” and the pressures surrounding women’s political expression jointly reshaped democratic participation in South Korea, signaling a new phase in its ongoing evolution. | |