ABSTRACT

International media and their study are in the process of transformation, spurred on by increasingly mobile and globally networked communication infrastructures. The multi-vocal, multi-directional and multi-layered media flows have also made redundant many traditional ways of thinking about the media (Thussu, 2007; Arsenault and Castells, 2008). The globalization of media industries and audiences, combined with the internationalization of higher education, mean that the research and teaching of the media face pressing challenges.1 In particular, the transformation of media and communication in Asia – the world’s most populous region with some of its fastest growing economies – has profound implications for what constitutes the ‘global’ in media and their study. As a relatively new field that is by its nature inter-and trans-disciplinary, media studies is well placed to draw in and deploy a range of paradigms and approaches, from the social sciences as well as arts and humanities, to look across borders and boundaries, between nations, cultures and academic disciplines (Downing, 1996; Curran and Park, 2000; Appadurai, 2001; Murphy and Kraidy, 2003; Abbas and Erni, 2005; Miike, 2006; Shome, 2006; Thussu, 2007; Connell, 2007; Sreberny, 2008; Tomaselli, 2008). This chapter aims to delineate the changes in media and their study at a

juncture when notions of place, space and time have been reconfigured, making it imperative to suggest new research angles and approaches, as well as methodologies, going beyond explicit or implicit assumptions for studying international social reality. After providing a brief historical context to the evolution of media studies as an academic field, the chapter critiques the epistemological limitations of the study of the media, necessitated in part by the increasing importance of China and India in global communication and media discourses. Finally, the chapter suggests some markers which could contribute to the internationalization of media studies.