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Global South Discourse in East Asian Media Studies This book examines the nexus of East Asian media, culture and digital technologies 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 cultural 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 students 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 cultural content in the global cultural sphere. Several media theoreticians advanced new approaches, focusing on the emergence of non-Western cultural 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 countries—Japan, China and Korea, have turned themselves into some of the most significant global economic powers, and the East Asian cultural markets 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 production, 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 regionalization, 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 distinctive 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 cultural 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 economies, 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 cultural 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 production, circulation and consumption. On the one hand, compared to other DOI: 10.4324/9781003328131-1