“The globalization of pop music in 2019: An analysis of the Anglo-American, Spanish, and South Korean music markets.”

The aim of this thesis is twofold. First, is to expand on the current literature by examining the implications that streaming services have brought in the globalization of pop music. Second, is to examine the applicability of the explanatory determinants in this growing digital market, as it is believed that technological advancements could potentially diminish the importance of certain explanatory determinants, such as cultural centrality, cultural proximity, and physical distance. Since streaming consumption accounts for more than half of the overall music consumption worldwide, this is done by analyzing the annual top 100 pop music charts that incorporate both online and offline consumption for the markets of the U.S., the U.K., Spain and South Korea for 2019. Notably, during the analysis further attention is given to the prominence of language and record labels. Overall, the results show that there are substantial differences between the Western markets and the market of South Korea. Generally, South Korea was had most domestically oriented chart in the sample, while U.S. was the most successful origin country. Surprisingly, the international success of K-pop seems to be limited, while Latin music songs and artists were found in all four countries. Furthermore, while the analysis shows that the explanatory determinants, and especially the destination effects, have become less important, the charts still seem to reflect the preexisting offline power relationships of the industry. Particularly, the presence of majors was significant in all Western markets, while South Korean charts mostly consisted of domestic labels. All things considered, the findings of this thesis contradict the notion of one global market and instead suggest the conceptualization of multiple centralities in similar future studies.