Reorienting Global Communication

Emphasizing the global nature of Indian and Chinese film, television, and digital media, Reorienting Global Communication: Indian and Chinese Media Beyond Borders provides a diverse mix of alternative perspectives that collectively shift the discussion of media globalization away from Hollywood and New York. Linked by a shared history of colonialism, state socialism, large diasporas, and recent market liberalization, India and China are poised to become twenty-first-century world powers. While both enjoy a rich ensemble of religious iconography, legends, and folk traditions, Indian and Chinese producers and consumers are today challenged to find modes of expression that are culturally authentic and commercially viable in an increasingly globalized media environment. Essays cover topics such as the influence of transnational Indian families on the narrative elements of Bollywood productions, the rise of made-in-China blockbusters, the development of pan-Asian cinema, and migrants' use of the Internet to maintain connections with their homelands. Contributors are Michael Curtin, Chua Beng Huat, Shanti Kumar, Chin-Chuan Lee, Madhavi Mallapragada, Divya C. McMillin, Sreya Mitra, Sujata Moorti, Zhongdang Pan, Aswin Punathambekar, Jack Linchuan Qiu, Hemant Shah, Lakshmi Srinivas, Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, and Yuezhi Zhao.

This volume interrogates what "global" means in the context of "communication," and who benefits from global communication practices and industries. Emerging scholars contribute their unique perspectives in communication scholarship, charting innovative directions for research that connects empirical evidence with pressing questions of social significance. This critical reflection leads to considering problems that result from the way global communication becomes mobilized, in the practice of journalism and development as well as the ICT industry. Global Communication defines the term "globalization," through understanding the cultural geography of global, regional, national, and local media. Critical evaluations of media production, distribution, and consumption practices, within cultural contexts, offer insights into how people "mediate" the global. Chapters draw attention to communications in Latin America, the Arab World, and South Asia, complicating territorial boundaries and exploring how local audience and industry practices work within global as well as local configurations.

This edited volume addresses current challenges, trends and transformations in global communication governance. Exploring changes in the actors, issues, values and contexts of media and communications, it investigates the crossroads that media policy is facing and offers visions for the future. A diverse range of scholars and expert practitioners discuss what regulatory reforms and governing mechanisms are required to advance democratic participation and fundamental rights in platform societies. Organized around five sections, the volume considers the geopolitics of emerging communication orders; the changing roles of actors and stakeholders; the challenge of embedding rights and values in regulatory arrangements; the intersection of technology and policy; and the need to rethink epistemologies and methodologies for researching this field. Contributions from different disciplines and cultural backgrounds include provocative think pieces and longer analyses. All chapters are grounded in historically-aware understandings of contemporary transformations, while anticipating dynamics of our communication futures.

A critical intervention in international communications, in which an array of eminent scholars challenge the Western-dominated conceptions of the field

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.

This key textbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of developments in international communication worldwide. Taking a comparative approach to the major theories of global media, Terry Flew looks at the rise of global media production networks and the emergence of 'media cities', multiculturalism, and the question of a global media culture. This engaging book raises the question of whether we are now in a 'post-global' age, and discusses whether there is a stable global communications order, or instead a stage of increased competition among digital and traditional media, and between the US and emergent powers such as China. Drawing on a wide range of perspectives, and written by a renowned author, this is an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, communication studies and cultural studies, and anyone interested in the study of media and globalization.

This book provides a wide-ranging theoretical and empirical overview of the disparate achievements and shortcomings of global communication. This exceptionally ambitious and systematic project takes a critical perspective on the globalization of communication. Uniquely, it sets media globalization alongside a plethora of other globalized forms of communication, ranging from the individual to groups, civil society groupings, commercial enterprises and political formations. The result is a sophisticated and impressive overview of globalized communication across various facets, assessing the phenomena for the extent to which they live up to the much-hyped claims of globalization’s potential to create a globally interdependent society. The setbacks of globalization, such as right-wing populism and religious fundamentalism, can only be understood if the shortcomings of global communication are taken more seriously. Covering all types of cross-border global communication in media, political and economic systems, civil societies, social media and lifeworlds of the individual, this unique book is invaluable for students and researchers in media, communication, globalization and related areas.

The third edition of International Communication examines the profound changes that have taken place, and are continuing to take place at an astonishing speed, in international media and communication. Building on the success of previous editions, this book maps out the expansion of media and telecommunications corporations within the macro-economic context of liberalisation, deregulation and privitisation. It then goes on to explore the impact of such growth on audiences in different cultural contexts and from regional, national and international perspectives. Each chapter contains engaging case studies which exemplify the main concepts and arguments.