ABSTRACT
As part of a larger comparative study on television in the post-broadcast era, this chapter takes a series of comparative snapshots of current developments in the Chinese geo-linguistic market: in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. In particular, it focuses on the progress towards market liberalization and on television’s role as a nationalizing medium within the more general process of modernization in the region. The development of each of these markets has its specific nuances and national characteristics. The key trend is towards marketization, one of the outcomes of what is often described as a liberalization of the industry. But how this occurs, in what shape or form, and the effects on the culture of the nation-state as well as their television industries, differ in each of these locations. The often-quoted work of Joseph Straubhaar on cultural proximity (1991)
as an explanation for the success of imports and flows of media products across national borders has resulted in the understanding that audiences first prefer their own local national content, and then regional content that lends itself to cultural familiarity (Sinclair 1999). However, cultural proximity is also widely used as a means of capturing a general sense of cultural approximation rather than explaining the specifics of the regional cultural exchange. Hence, Iwabuchi (2002: 135) cautions against over-deterministic readings based on a presumed commonality while suggesting instead that we need to further interrogate precisely how the relations are proximate. This chapter is, to some extent, a response to that suggestion. The chapter builds on the common cultural links between the four geo-
linguistic Chinese markets in question here. They share a historical past, language (written and spoken Mandarin, variations of dialects), ethnicity (Han), and cultural practices linked to religions and rituals such as Chinese Lunar New Year/Spring Festival, Mooncake Festival and Qingming Day (equivalent to All Saints’ Day). These shared social and cultural attributes have a material and ritual aspect that lends itself to regional circulation, participating in a wider received notion of the history and performance of Chinese-ness. Shared
knowledge of common mythologies and parables further allows television historical dramas, novels and supernatural tales to recapture characters such as Nezha or the Monkey King and to retell the tales of the Eight Immortals for audiences young and old. These loosely structured socio-cultural links help create something of a shared present, which has recently been intensified, due to the economic opening up of the PRC, the return of Hong Kong to the PRC, Taiwan and the PRC’s move to a more conciliatory position of sorts, and thus a possible indication of a tighter regional collaboration based on growing economic proximity and shared cultural tastes.
