ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |17 pages

Introduction

Asian popular culture: the global (dis)continuity

part |92 pages

The dominance of global continuity

chapter |21 pages

When Chinese Youth Meet Harry Potter

Translating consumption and middle-class identification1

chapter |17 pages

One Region, Two Modernities

Disneyland in Tokyo and Hong Kong

chapter |17 pages

Comic Travels

Disney publishing in the People's Republic of China

chapter |18 pages

Saving Face for Magazine Covers

New forms of transborder visuality in urban China

chapter |17 pages

Cultural Consumption and Masculinity

A case study of GQ magazine covers in Taiwan

part |83 pages

Global discontinuity

chapter |26 pages

An Unlocalized and Unglobalized Subculture

English language independent music in Singapore

chapter |15 pages

“Only Mix, Never Been Cut”

The localized production of Jamaican music in Thailand

chapter |18 pages

Popular Online Games in the Taiwanese Market

An examination of the relationships of media globalization and local media consumption

part |35 pages

Cultural domestication

chapter |16 pages

Pocket Capitalism and Virtual intimacy

Pokémon as a symptom of post-industrial youth culture1

chapter |17 pages

Playing the Global Game

Japan brand and globalization

part |36 pages

China as a rising market

chapter |17 pages

China's New Creative Strategy

The utilization of cultural soft power and new markets

chapter |17 pages

Renationalizing Hong Kong Cinema

The gathering force of the mainland market