ABSTRACT
Introduction The idea of border-crossing television in East Asia can refer to a number of manifestations in various stages of television production, circulation, and consumption. The possibility of shows traveling across borders has always been contingent upon the available communication technologies (e.g. satellite TV, recording formats like DVD, MPEG, streaming), mediators (ethnic-Chinese communities, small capitalists), and the discrepant notion of intellectual property. Compared to twenty or thirty years ago, there is definitely a more concerted effort at the state and industry level to co-invest and profit from multiple integrated and specialized markets. Adaptation, mutual reference, format trade, and other industry practices have created audition shows, talk shows, and TV dramas with familiar, transcultural currency. This development presents significant challenges for how we conceptualize television. For example, how are we to understand television beyond the national border not just for its economic value, but also as aesthetic expectation? In this section, we have two chapters that comment on the ideological ramifications of border-crossing TV drama in East Asia.
