Table Of ContentGlobal South Discourse in East Asian
Media Studies
This book examines the nexus of East Asian media, culture and digital tech-
nologies in the early 21st century from a Global South perspective.
Providing an empirically rich analysis of the emergence of Asian culture,
histories, texts and state policies as they relate to both Asian media and
global media, the author discusses relevant theoretical frameworks as East
Asian popular culture and media have shifted the contours of globalization.
After overviewing Western media/cultural theories and histories, the book
explores the ways in which East Asia-focused analytical frameworks are able
to shift people’s understanding of globalization and media, drawing upon
examples from different East Asian countries to illustrate how current cul-
tural flows have influenced and have been influenced by a handful of
dimensions.
Offering an important contribution to understanding the historical trajec-
tory and recent developments of East Asia media, this book will interest stu-
dents and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, cultural
studies, Asian studies, politics and sociology.
Dal Yong Jin is a Distinguished Professor at Simon Fraser University and a
Global Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Korea
University. Jin’s major research and teaching interests are digital platforms
and digital games, globalization and media, transnational cultural studies
and the political economy of media and culture. His books include Smartland
Korea: Mobile Communication, Culture and Society (2017) and Artificial
Intelligence in Cultural Production: Critical Perspectives on Digital Platforms
(2021). Jin is the founding book series editor of Routledge Research in Digital
Media and Culture in Asia. He has directed The Transnational Culture and
Digital Technology Lab since 2021.
Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies
Playing with Reality
Denying, Manipulating, Converting, and Enhancing What Is There
Edited by Sidney Homan
Celebrity Bromance
Constructing, Interpreting and Utilising Personas
Celia Lam and Jackie Raphael
Celebrity and New Media
Gatekeeping Success
Stephanie Patrick
Mediatisation of Emotional Life
Edited by Katarzyna Kopecka-Piech and Mateusz Sobiech
Serial Killers in Contemporary Television
Familiar Monsters in Post-9/11 Culture
Edited by Brett A.B. Robinson and Christine Daigle
The Eurovision Song Contest as a Cultural Phenomenon
From Concert Halls to the Halls of Academia
Edited by Adam Dubin, Dean Vuletic, and Antonio Obregón
Drag in the Global Digital Public Sphere
Queer Visibility, Online Discourse and Political Change
Edited by Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas
Crowds, Community and Contagion in Contemporary Britain
Sarah Lowndes
Global South Discourse in East Asian Media Studies
Dal Yong Jin
Bias, Belief, and Conviction in an Age of Fake Facts
Edited by Anke Finger and Manuela Wagner
Global South Discourse in East
Asian Media Studies
Dal Yong Jin
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2023 Dal Yong Jin
The right of Dal Yong Jin to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-35262-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-35709-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-32813-1 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003328131
Typeset in Times New Roman
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
Preface vi
1 The Emergence of East Asian Media Systems 1
2 E ncounters with Western Media Theory: East
Asian Perspectives 23
3 Understanding Hybridization in East Asia 46
4 J apan Goes Beyond Asia: Status in the Asian
Global South 69
5 The Global South Debate in Cultural Regionalization 91
6 The Rise of East Asian Digital Platforms 111
7 D igital Culture in East Asia: Personalization
Systems in the Digital Platform Era 135
8 The Global South Toward the Global North 158
Index 171
Preface
Over the past two decades, a few non-Western countries in Asia and Latin
America have developed their own cultural systems and cultural products.
While the late 20th century symbolized American imperialism in the realm of
popular culture, the early 21st century has witnessed the growth of local cul-
tural content in the global cultural sphere. Several media theoreticians
advanced new approaches, focusing on the emergence of non-Western cul-
tural programs through various theoretical and methodological frameworks.
East Asia has especially become one of the fastest-growing regions due to
Japanese and Korean cultural forces and Chinese emerging economic power.
It has been natural for media scholars to analyze the advent of East Asia in
the context of transnational cultural studies. While a handful of interesting
approaches, such as inter-Asian cultural flows, regionalization and inter-Asia
referencing, work as fundamental theoretical frameworks, one of the most
significant but missing perspectives in tandem with East Asia is the Global
South discourse.
East Asia as a region has shown a variety of distinctive characteristics, and
it has been one of the most dynamic regions, both culturally and geopoliti-
cally, in the world. However, East Asia is relatively more affluent than other
non-Western regions, making media scholars hesitate to analyze the region
from the Global South perspective. East Asian countries, including Singapore,
Taiwan and Hong Kong (now part of China), as well as three major coun-
tries—Japan, China and Korea, have turned themselves into some of the
most significant global economic powers, and the East Asian cultural mar-
kets have become some of the largest around the globe. Indeed, a few East
Asian countries have advanced popular culture and digital technologies
based on their increasing economic power. These elements prove that East
Asia has rapidly grown to become one of the primary hubs in cultural pro-
duction, which cannot be seen in other non-Western regions. Due to these
unique characteristics, I have continued to advance my academic perspectives
on East Asia through a few different approaches, including cultural regional-
ization, transnational convergence, hybridization and intra-cultural flows,
over the past decade or so. Since these approaches are major characteristics
of the Global South, I have already touched on numerous focal points in the
Global South discourse in the East Asian context.
Preface vii
What is significant is that East Asia still needs to be analyzed through the
Global South discourse, regardless of the growth of Japanese and Korean
popular cultures in the global cultural markets, as this region shows distinc-
tive cultural attributes relevant to Global South. Most of all, it is necessary
to develop the Global South discourse in tandem with East Asia due to the
increasing role of digital platforms, both social media platforms, such as
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, and OTT (over-the-top) service platforms,
such as Netflix, Apple TV and Disney +. Unlike the recent growth of East
Asian cultural content, digital platforms certainly prove that American forces
are still dominant players in the East Asian cultural and technological scenes
as elsewhere. Digital platforms and popular culture cannot be separated, due
to their close relationships in cultural production, from the production of
popular culture to the circulation and consumption of cultural content.
When we ponder the significant role of digital platforms, our understanding
of East Asia in the early 21st century is not different from other non-Western
regions. Although several East Asian countries have continued to develop
their own digital platforms, Western digital platforms are primary actors, at
least in the early 2020s. This implies that global digital platforms appropriate
local users and local cultural content to attract global users and audiences.
The current milieu surrounding popular culture has changed as global
OTT platforms like Netflix have created various new business strategies and
norms. While playing as the global distributor, Netflix directly works with
local cultural firms to produce their original content, which means that power
imbalances between the Global North and the Global South in East Asia
have not been resolved but intensified. Consequently, many East Asian cul-
tural industry firms can be the subcontractors of global digital platforms. It
is crucial for media scholars to advance timely discussions on the significant
features of East Asian popular culture and digital technologies in terms of
the Global South discourse.
The Global South discourse in tandem with East Asia may advance a
handful of new perspectives that media theoreticians and students who are
interested in East Asian popular culture and digital technologies need to
comprehend about cultural localities in relation to the Global North.
Although it is not perfect, I believe that it is essential to view East Asia as one
of the most viable places to work as the Global South, but toward the Global
North.
There are two previous published journal articles for this book project.
They are “Encounters with Western Media Theory: Asian Perspectives”
(2021), published in Media, Culture & Society 43(1): 150–157, and “Where Is
Japan in Media Studies in the Post-Cold War Era: Critical Discourse of the
West and the East” (2009), published in Social Science Research 22(1): 261–
293. They are substantively updated and reinterpreted from their original
versions.
1 The Emergence of East Asian Media
Systems
Introduction
East Asia as a region has shown a variety of distinctive characteristics, and it
has been one of the most dynamic regions in the world. Japan is the first
non-Western country to have modernized in the region; Korea, Taiwan,
Singapore and Hong Kong (now part of China) comprise the Four Dragons
of thriving late development, and China has proved its potential to become a
world economic power with a continent-sized market (Kim and Lim, 2007).
East Asia has the largest population in the world with a few emerging econo-
mies, as well as the world’s second and third-largest economies. East Asia
also has a handful of powerhouses in sports and demonstrates its unique
geopolitics rooted in the colonial experience like the Japanese occupation of
Asian countries, including parts of China and the Korean peninsula. Starting
in the late 20th century, East Asia has added two more primary features to
this resume—the advent of popular culture and digital technologies.
East Asian cultural systems, including popular culture, digital technologies
and relevant cultural industries, have rapidly grown to become some of the
major players in the global cultural sphere. A few East Asian countries have
advanced their cultural and information technology (IT) infrastructure based
on their increasing economic power measured by gross domestic product
(GDP). Once they develop their popular cultures, such as television dramas,
film, popular music and digital gaming, they also attempt to penetrate other
countries. They initially export cultural products to neighboring countries,
known as inter-Asian cultural flows or intra-Asian cultural flows; however,
they gradually increase their export to Western regions, including North
America and Western Europe, known as contra-flows or counter-cultural
flows. East Asian countries, in particular Japan, South Korea (hereafter
Korea) and China, have increased their cultural influence in the global cul-
tural sphere one after another.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, East Asian popular culture and the
subsequent growth of East Asian cultural power have been actively advanced.
A handful of indicators clearly show that East Asia has rapidly grown to
become one of the primary hubs in cultural production, encompassing pro-
duction, circulation and consumption. On the one hand, compared to other
DOI: 10.4324/9781003328131-1
