East Asian Perspective in Transmedia Storytelling | Transmedia Storytelling in the Age of Digital Media: East Asian Perspectives — Introduction

Abstract

Admitting to the explosion of transmedia storytelling based on Korean webtoons and Japanese manga/anime, this Special Section focuses on the emergence of East Asian transmedia storytelling, which is rapidly growing. As the outcomes of the June 2018 Vancouver conference, the papers included in this section commonly attempt to investigate the recent surge of webtoons and manga/anime as the sources of transmedia storytelling for East Asian popular culture. The primary purpose of this Special Section is to explore whether cultural products utilizing transmedia storytelling take a major role as the primary local cultural product in the Asian cultural market in the 21st century. Some of them also historicize the evolution of regional popular culture according to the surrounding digital media ecology, driving the change and continuity of the manhwa industry, now focusing on webtoons, over the past 15 years.