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More media outlets appear to be reporting entertainment news more than hard news. You go to your nearest Rite-Aid and find racks of tabloid magazines, usually reporting on the same thing in their cover stories.

I remember 1999 as a grand year for pop culture. Pop music was bombarded with boy bands, singing Lolitas and Latino heartthrobs. George Lucas was ready to unleash the first chapter of that dismal "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. Stanley Kubrick gave us his final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," after he passed away that year.

Pop culture has become one big guilty pleasure -- a gluttonous, confectionary hodgepodge that you know is bad for you but you just can't keep away.

The success of these and other Japanese works in Korea is raising concerns that Japanese pop culture could once again dominate Korea.

Experts say the Korean entertainment industry's dependence on Japanese pop culture will increase because the Japanese novel and manga markets are popular around the world. According to the Korean Publishing Research Institute, as of 2006 the size of the Korean novel market was no more than W203 billion, while that of Japanese market stood at W724.3 billion. The gap for the manga markets was even greater, with the Japanese market (W4 trillion) some 40 times bigger than the Korean market (W124.2 billion).

Bae Won-keun, a researcher at the KPRI, says it is a shame that Korean entertainment companies scramble to snap up Japanese stories for quick returns rather than working to strengthen their creative power. "The entertainment industry should make more effort to cultivate young writers with fresh ideas," he adds.

If you have had any exposure to adolescent or teenage girls over the past decade, then you are all too familiar with the phenomenon known as Hello Kitty, the mouthless cartoon cat that decorates the paraphernalia (usually done in garish pink) that has made Tokyo-based parent Sanrio Co. Ltd. an 83-billion-yen-a-year company (about $795 million).

Why would Japanese cartoon characters appeal to American youth? Why stuff that is, to put it mildly and to use an American expression, cheesy?

What allows some products or concepts to travel around the world, while others can't get out of the house?

most everybody around the world stopped what they were doing — on television, on the Internet and on the street — to look and listen.

as the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, showed in 1997, communal sorrow is moving, public frenzy is alarming, but the two together make for irresistible television.

Brian Williams of NBC, who sat on a special platform outside the Staples Center, told his colleague Lester Holt that the public had a way of deciding for itself what matters, “despite, at some times, the news media’s better wishes.” He added ruefully, “And this is an event because it is.”

Pan," at least in Adam Reeder's version of the mythological figure, dances to the iPod

"Technology has changed the context but not the nature of humans or art," says Reeder. "Classical sculpture is typically very serious and everyday people come in and they're kind of ready to be bored. Then, they see this and say 'Dude, this is great.'

the Seoul city government has launched a project to attract more foreign tourists seeking cosmetic surgery -- capitalising on the popularity of the "Korean Wave" of pop culture in Asia in recent years.

Cosmetic surgery is commonplace in South Korea. A Kyung Hee University survey in 2007 found that 47.3 percent of adults had experienced it.