Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia
Asian Cultural Studies: Transnational and Dialogic Approaches
The series advances transnational intellectual dialogue over diverse issues that are shared in various Asian countries and cities.
Series Editor
Koichi Iwabuchi, Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Director of Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Australia
Editorial Collective
Ien Ang (University of Western Sydney)
Chris Berry (Kings College London)
John Erni (Hong Kong Baptist University)
Daniel Goh (National University of Singapore)
Ariel Heryanto (Australian National University)
Kim Hyun Mee (Yonsei University)
Titles in the Series
Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia , edited by Daniel Black, Olivia Khoo and Koichi Iwabuchi.
Multiculturalism in East Asia: A Transnational Exploration of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan , edited by Koichi Iwabuchi, Hyun Mee Kim and Hsiao-Chuan Hsia.
Transnational Memory and Popular Culture in East and Southeast Asia: Amnesia, Nostalgia and Heritage , Liew Kai Khiun (forthcoming).
Islamic Modernities in Southeast Asia: Exploring Indonesian Popular and Visual Culture , Leonie Schmidt (forthcoming).
Cultural Policy and East Asian Rivalry: The Hong Kong Gaming Industry , Anthony Y. H. Fung (forthcoming).
Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia
Edited by
Daniel Black, Olivia Khoo and Koichi Iwabuchi
London New York
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Selection and editorial matter 2016 Daniel Black, Olivia Khoo and Koichi Iwabuchi
Copyright in individual chapters is held by the respective chapter authors.
All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: HB 978-1-7834-8708-0
PB 978-1-7834-8709-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available
ISBN 978-1-7834-8708-0 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7834-8709-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7834-8710-3 (electronic)
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Ariel Heryanto
Helen Hok-Sze Leung
Younghan Cho
Meghan Downes
Leonie Schmidt
Julian Millie
Lisa Yuk-ming Leung
Fang-chih Irene Yang and Liew Kai Khiun
Shalmalee Palekar
Yeran Kim
Guobin Yang and Wei Wang
Fran Martin
John Nguyet Erni
Culture, media and communications in Asian regions is an area of study that has developed rapidly over the past two decades. This reflects drastic transformations in the region such as economic growth and the rise of middle-class youth, the advancement of digital communication technologies and the intensification of transnational flows of media culture, the synergy of which has brought about the expansion of media culture production, circulation and consumption in many parts of Asia. This has led to the deployment of diverse scholarly approaches while simultaneously raising important questions regarding the extent to which the use of key terms such as nation, modernity and gender/sexuality must be modified to reflect the specificity of Asian contexts. Furthermore, the irrepressible flows of popular cultural forms and the enthusiastic adoption of new communications technologies across the region demand approaches that can accommodate the dynamism and diversity of Asian culture and media. Many critical and constructive studies have been published on themes such as de-Westernised patterns of cultural production, circulation and consumption and thus have attracted many researchers in terms of de-Westernisation (Curran and Park 2000; Erni and Chua 2005), the rise of Chinese media cultures and markets (Curtin 2007; Fung 2008; Zhao 2008), Korean Wave phenomena (Chua and Iwabuchi 2008; Shin 2006; Cho 2011), the popularity of Japanese media cultures (Iwabuchi 2002, 2004; Condry 2006; Allison 2006), cultural adaptation and formatting (Moran and Keane 2004) and regional cultural flows and connectivities (Chua 2004; Berry, Liscutin and Mackintosh 2009; Kim 2008; Mueke, Iwabuchi and Thomas 2004). In line with these developments in cultural and media studies in Asian contexts, this volume brings together leading scholars from Asia, North America and Australia to address questions related to these challenges, producing new insights and frameworks that can be productively utilised by students and scholars working in the field.
Contemporary Culture and Media in Asia has two interrelated implications. One is an up-to-date critical examination of significant issues regarding culture and media in Asian regions. The other is attending to connections and relations in these issues that have been occurring in diverse Asian contexts over the same period. This book thus takes a trans-Asia perspective. This means that the book covers diverse, if not comprehensive, contexts across Asian regions such as Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and India. It also includes Canada and Australia as sites where trans-Asian human mobility and media flows are contextualised. Furthermore, as research into Asian culture and media has developed and coalesced, scholars working in these areas have become increasingly attuned to the complex intraregional connections that negotiate national and other boundaries to produce rich and productive flows of cultural influence, and the ways in which these flows articulate with a broader global context. As key developing themes in Asian cultural and media studies, attention has been focused on co-production (Jin and Lee 2007), market integration, cultural hybridisation and appropriation, representation of gender and sexualities and their circulation (Kim 2006; Lee 2008; Leung 2004; Nakano and Wu 2002; Iwabuchi 2002), fan communities and prosumer activities (Hu 2004, 2005; Pang 2006, 2009) and self-reflexive consumption and dialogic potentials (Iwabuchi 2002, 2004, 2008). These studies have elucidated the dynamic processes that structure the Asian media culture circuit, inventive representations and cultural imaginations, inter-Asian referencing of diverse modern experiences (see Iwabuchi 2015) and the roles played by social and mobile media as well as the Internet. As trans-Asian media culture flows and connections continue to develop in uneven and complex ways, the study of the trans-Asia dynamic needs to be further advanced by critically engaging with issues such as evolving cross-border exchanges at the sites of production, promotion and consumption through a comprehensive examination of Asian media and cultural industries; economies of attention that deter voices from crossing borders; and growing nationalism and jingoism and their impacts on self-reflexive consumption, to name just a few (Iwabuchi 2015). While a comprehensive examination of these issues is beyond the scope of one single book, chapters in this volume examine various ways in which the production, circulation and consumption of cultural forms can create new networks of influence and exchange that cut across national lines within Asian regions. This trans-Asia approach will allow a critical reconsideration of hitherto underexplored issues and perspectives concerning the Asian region.
