Transnational Communities in the Smartphone Age : The Korean Community in the Nation’s Capital

This book examines Korean immigrants’ transnational activities, in particular their consumption of transnational media, and the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet and smartphones, on cross-border engagement and its impact on their sense of home, identity, and belonging.

Transnational Communities in the Smartphone Age: The Korean Community in the Nation’s Capital examines the durable ties immigrants maintain with the home country and focuses in particular on their transnational cultural activities. In light of changing technologies, especially information and communication technologies (ICTs), which enable a faster, easier, and greater social and cultural engagement with the home country, this book argues that middle-class immigrants, such as Korean immigrants in the Washington-Baltimore region, sustain more regular connections with the homeland through cultural, rather than economic or political, transnational activities. Though not as conspicuous and contentious as other forms of transnational participation, cultural transnational activities may prove to be more lasting and also serve as a backbone for maintaining longer-lasting connections and identities with the home country.