This study adopts a cross-national comparative perspective to systematically examine the entertainment agency industries in China and South Korea under two distinct institutional contexts. It focuses on how the organizational and media mechanisms amon...
This study adopts a cross-national comparative perspective to systematically examine the entertainment agency industries in China and South Korea under two distinct institutional contexts. It focuses on how the organizational and media mechanisms among “company–artist–platform–audience” collaboratively construct celebrity identities and shape their circulation across different cultural and economic fields. Employing a mixed-methods approach that integrates literature analysis, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews, the research draws on a comprehensive theoretical framework encompassing cultural flow, field and capital, material culture, and ritual communication.
The study first traces the historical evolution of both countries’ entertainment industries from industrialization to platformization, revealing a structural divergence between South Korea’s “centralized–institutionalized” pathway—characterized by the trainee system, vertical integration, and policy support—and China’s “decentralized–platform-centralized” pathway, dominated by platform algorithms, MCN structures, and the logic of digital traffic. The findings indicate that, in the mechanisms of identity production and reproduction, South Korea achieves a stable accumulation of symbolic capital through institutionalized training, corporate branding, and policy coordination, whereas China relies more on platform-driven immediacy and participatory communication, resulting in more fragmented and rapidly iterative celebrity identities. Regarding the survival of small and medium-sized agencies, South Korea’s system provides institutional buffers and reconstruction channels for failure, while China’s entertainment ecology lacks such structural safeguards, leaving enterprises and artists vulnerable to “fragile rupture.” Theoretically, this study integrates cultural studies with institutional analysis, and practically, it proposes policy insights emphasizing the coordination of institutional flexibility, platform governance, and capital pathways for mutual learning between China and South Korea.
Building on this foundation, the study introduces the concept of “C-star” (Chinese Star System) to elucidate the unique evolution of China’s entertainment industry within the framework of platform capitalism. The C-star model embodies both institutional hybridity and platform-driven logic: it incorporates the organizational features of the Korean idol industry while localizing them through algorithmic governance, social participation, and fan co-creation. Unlike Korea’s highly institutionalized celebrity production system, C-star identity formation depends primarily on visibility and affective participation generated through platform algorithms. The accumulation of symbolic capital has shifted from a “training–debut–branding” chain to an “exposure–algorithm–participation” chain, creating a decentralized identity mechanism embedded in digital culture.
From the perspective of cultural flow, the C-star model is not a mere extension of the Korean wave but a process of re-semantization in the Chinese context. Through reality shows, short-video platforms, and participatory fan practices, entertainment forms are re-encoded during transnational circulation, producing hybrid expressions that are both globally legible and locally grounded. C-star thus emerges as a dynamic cultural subject whose identity is continuously negotiated across companies, platforms, audiences, and regulatory systems.
From the field and capital perspective, the C-star model reflects a redistribution of symbolic capital in the digital era. Celebrity status is determined less by institutional training or brand endorsement and more by algorithmic visibility and data feedback. While this enhances the potential for individual emergence, it also increases the industry’s volatility and competitiveness. For small and medium-sized agencies, C-star brings flexibility but also exposes them to precarity, as they lack institutional buffering mechanisms.