Popular Culture In Asia

Popular Culture in Asia consists studies of film, music, architecture, television, and computer-mediated communication in China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore, addressing three topics: urban modernities; modernity, celebrity, and fan culture; and memory and modernity.

This volume examines the relations between popular culture production and export and the state in East and Southeast Asia including the urban centres and middle-classes of Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Thailand, and the Philippines. It addresses the shift in official thinking toward the role of popular culture in the political life of states brought about by the massive circulation of cultural commodities and the possibilities for attaining "soft power". In contrast to earlier studies, this volume pays particular attention to the role of states and cross-state cultural interactions in these processes. It is the first major attempt to look at these issues comparatively and to provide an important corrective to the limitations of existing scholarship on popular culture in Asia that have usually neglected its political aspects. As part of this move, the essays in this volume suggest a widening of disciplinary perspectives. Hitherto, the preponderance of relevant studies has been in cultural and media fields, anthropology or history. Here the contributors explicitly draw on other disciplinary perspectives – political science and international relations, political economy, law, and policy studies – to explore the complex interrelationships between the state, politics and economics, and popular culture. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian culture, society and politics, the sociology of culture, political science and media studies.

This ready reference is a comprehensive guide to pop culture in Asia and Oceania, including topics such as top Korean singers, Thailand's sports heroes, and Japanese fashion. This entertaining introduction to Asian pop culture covers the global superstars, music idols, blockbuster films, and current trends—from the eclectic to the underground—of East Asia and South Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, India, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Pakistan, as well as Oceania. The rich content features an exploration of the politics and personalities of Bollywood, a look at how baseball became a huge phenomenon in Taiwan and Japan, the ways in which censorship affects social media use in these regions, and the influence of the United States on the movies, music, and Internet in Asia. Topics include contemporary literature, movies, television and radio, the Internet, sports, video games, and fashion. Brief overviews of each topic precede entries featuring key musicians, songs, published works, actors and actresses, popular websites, top athletes, video games, and clothing fads and designers. The book also contains top-ten lists, a chronology of pop culture events, and a bibliography. Sidebars throughout the text provide additional anecdotal information.

Conventional political science depicts legitimate elections as rational affairs in which informed voters select candidates for office according to how their coherently presented aims, ideologies and policies appeal to the self-interest of the electorate. In reality elections, whether in first world democracies, or in the various governmental systems present in Asia, can more realistically be seen as cultural events in which candidates’ campaigns are shaped, consciously or unconsciously, to appeal to the cultural understanding and practices of the electorate. The election campaign period is one in which the masses are mobilized to participate in a range of cultural activities, from flying the party colours in noisy motorcycle parades to attending political rallies for or against, or simply to be entertained by the performances on the political stage, and to gambling on the outcome of the contest. The essays in this book analyse electioneering activities in nine Asian countries in terms of popular cultural practices in each location, ranging from updated traditional cultures to mimicry and caricatures of present day television dramas. In presenting political election as an expression of popular culture this book portrays electoral behaviour as a meaningful cultural practice. As such this book will appeal to student and scholars of political science and cultural studies alike, as well as those with a more general interest in Asian studies.

This book examines different aspects of Asian popular culture, including films, TV, music, comedy, folklore, cultural icons, the Internet and theme parks. It raises important questions such as – What are the implications of popularity of Asian popular culture for globalization? Do regional forces impede the globalizing of cultures? Or does the Asian popular culture flow act as a catalyst or conveying channel for cultural globalization? Does the globalization of culture pose a threat to local culture? It addresses two seemingly contradictory and yet parallel processes in the circulation of Asian popular culture: the interconnectedness between Asian popular culture and western culture in an era of cultural globalization that turns subjects such as Pokémon, Hip Hop or Cosmopolitan into truly global phenomena, and the local derivatives and versions of global culture that are necessarily disconnected from their origins in order to cater for the local market. It thereby presents a collective argument that, whilst local social formations, and patterns of consumption and participation in Asia are still very much dependent on global cultural developments and the phenomena of modernity, yet such dependence is often concretized, reshaped and distorted by the local media to cater for the local market.

The political economy of popular culture -- Popular culture and the East Asian region -- Japan's popular culture powerhouse -- The creation of a regional market -- Japan's regional model -- Conclusion: Japanese popular culture and the making of East Asia.

Since the 1990s there has been a dramatic increase in cultural flows and connections between the countries in the East Asian region. Nowhere is this more apparent than when looking at popular culture where uneven but multilateral exchanges of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and Chinese products have led to the construction of an ‘East Asian Popular Culture’. This is both influenced by, and in turn influences, the national cultures, and generates transnational co-production and reinvention. As East Asian popular culture becomes a global force, it is increasingly important for us to understand the characteristics of contemporary East Asian popular culture, and in particular its transnational nature. In this handbook, the contributors theorize East Asian experiences and reconsider Western theories on cultural globalization to provide a cutting-edge overview of this global phenomenon. The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Popular Culture will be of great interest to students and scholars of a wide range of disciplines, including: Cultural Studies, Media Studies, Communication Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Asian Studies in general.

Asian Popular Culture in Transition examines contemporary consumption practices in South Korea, China, India, and Japan, and both updates and extends popular culture studies of the region. Through an interdisciplinary lens, this collection of essays explores how recent advances and shifts in information technologies and globalization have impacted cultural markets, fashion, the digital generation, mobile culture, femininity, matrimonial advertising, and a film actress’ image and performance. Drawing upon a diverse range of sources and methods including historical research, content analysis, anthropological observation, textual analyses, and interviews, Asian Popular Culture in Transition makes a significant contribution to this growing area of research. Given its broad range of countries, theories, and approaches, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, cultural studies, media and communication studies, and gender studies.