ABSTRACT
The phenomenal growth of transnational television in Asia has been perceived as a threat to national sovereignty by governments, and has precipitated a variety of responses across Asia. Domestic media controlled by nationalistic governments have long ignored social aspirations and cultural tastes which the transnational medium subsequently catered to with considerable success. Hence audiences and local entrepreneurs have circumvented various restrictions imposed on access causing governments to relent. Deregulation has led further to collusion between big business and political elites, involving both transnational and domestic media, while undermining the nation-state. But rather than being a voice or even just a space for subnational or transnational civil societies, these newer commercial media have reconstituted them as audience markets to be sold to advertisers. This concluding chapter attempts a critical analysis of the role, reception and regulation of transnational satellite television across much of Northeast and Southeast Asia. It argues that the television revolution here over the turn of the twenty-first century has been largely a technological one driven by commercial imperatives, rather than by any ideological resurgence of civil society ideals.
