Communication and Cultural Identity in Asia

Michael Keane

The workshop on ‘Communication and Cultural Identity’ held at Mt Tamborine, Queensland, 27-29 November 2000 had its precedent in a meeting in Scotland in 1996, where a workshop on ‘Identity and Communication in Latin America’ was jointly sponsored by the World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) and the Media Research Institute (MRI) of Stirling University. The 1996 workshop succeeded in bringing the work of a number of important Latin American scholars to a wider international audience (see Media Development 1/1997). The location of the workshop also served to contrast the contemporary European experience of policy-driven pan-European cultural identity with the more organic and linguistically constructed shared cultural space of Latin America. The idea of the 2000 workshop held in Australia was to address similar issues across a number of Asian countries.

Koichi Iwabuchi

The development of communication technologies has facilitated the simultaneous circulation of media information, images and texts on a global level. In this process, various (national) markets are being penetrated and integrated by powerful global media giants such as News Corp., Sony and Disney. However, globalization does not just mean the spread of the same (American) products all over the world through these media giants. Economic growth in Asia has given birth to affluent youth cultural markets, yet they are not to be penetrated by American popular culture. The following article argues that intra-regional cultural flows and consumption have also been activated more than ever.

Terence Lee

The theme and concept of civil society as the sphere opposed to the state has made a global comeback in recent years, becoming one of the most employed term in contemporary politics. Post-crisis Southeast Asia, including the global(ising) city-state of Singapore, is no exception. The notion of civil society, however, comes in various contours, forms and content, and as such is as ambiguous as it is popular. In Singapore, civil society is ‘introduced’ and prescribed by the government/state. This paper examines the Singapore idea(l) of civil society via its inception as ‘civic’ society (1991) and as a government vision statement calling for ‘active citizenship’ (Singapore 21, 1999). As my analysis will show, civil society in Singapore is really about engendering civility and/or a gracious society on the one hand, and a strategic attempt at policing political participation/dissenting voices under the rubric of ‘active citizenship’ on the other.

Peter Mares

The way in which the Australian media dealt with the issue of asylum seekers in the months following an unprecedented sharp increase in the number of unauthorised boat arrivals on Australian shores in the latter half of 1999 is the focus of the following article. It argues that the initial response of the Australian media was shallow and sensationalist, equating asylum seekers with criminals who posed a serious security threat to the country. This message was reinforced by the federal government, which successfully controlled and manipulated the flow of information in such a way as to provoke an unwarranted sense of national crisis. However I also note that, over time, a few persistent journalists succeeded in raising important questions about policy towards asylum seekers, particularly in regard to Australia’s harsh policy of mandatory and indefinite detention for asylum seekers who arrive in the country without authorisation. In response, minor changes were proposed to the detention regime, indicating that policy on this issue is not immutable, and that the determination to pursue a story with compassion and accuracy can help to bring about change.

K. P. Jayasankar and Anjali Monteiro

The issue of representing the other is a contentious one in the context of documentary and ethnographic film. Equally contentious is the issue of the relationship of the documentary to reality. In a multi-cultural society like India, the practices of documentary production and reception involve a constant negotiation of identities in which various ‘others’ are invoked. This is an attempt to reflect on our own praxis as documentary filmmakers, a praxis that cannot escape the onus of representing the other. This piece starts with a brief overview of documentary film in India, before moving on to explore the politics of representation, through a discussion of the film Kahankar: Ahankar (Story Maker: Story Taker).

Josefina M. C. Santos

How has Philippine television impacted on the cultural identity of Filipinos? In turn, how has Philippine culture shaped Philippine television? Around these two key questions revolve the discussions contained in this article, which first situates the debate within the context of the larger society in which both Philippine television and culture are developing.

Jan Servaes and Rico Lie

There is substantial disagreement as to how globalisation is best conceptualised, how one should think about its causal dynamics, how one should characterise its structural, socio-economic consequences, and which implications it has on state power and governance. This debate has developed three different theses on globalisation: a (hyper)globalist perspective, a sceptical or traditionalist perspective, and, a transformationalist perspective. Globalists see globalisation as an inevitable development that cannot be resisted or significantly influenced by human intervention. Traditionalists argue that the significance of globalisation as a new phase has been exaggerated. Transformationalists believe that globalisation represents a significant shift, but question the inevitability of its impacts. The following article examines this debate in the light of Asian media and culture.

Wanning Sun

Against a background of recent socio-political changes in China, the author of the following article argues that the complex and complicit relationship between the state and media, in terms of ownership, access and ideological convergence, should not be overlooked. Despite the fact that compassionate journalism is a product of the growing urban middle-class and often denies the agency of the weak and poor, it is still possible to recognise that the democratising and modernising potential brought about by recent changes in media practices.

Carlos A. Camacho

De acuerdo con la trascendencia que el tema de la ciudadanía y la comunicación va cobrando en América Latina y la re-definición del rol de los medios masivos de comunicación en contextos democráticos, este artículo aborda el rol mediador de éstos en función de su constitución y potenciamiento como espacios públicos gestores de ciudadanía a partir de diversos ámbitos comunicativos complementarios (modelo de comunicación), a saber: el discurso, la oferta informativa noticiosa, la incidencia en la opinión pública y la generación de participación entre los interlocutores.

Georgios Terzis

Media in a given country are structurally, institutionally and politically biased towards nationalism and a culture of conflict. In such cases, what can the individual journalist in today’s globalisation era do? How can the journalist ensure that s/he represents all the truths and interests involved in a story? How can the journalist make a constructive contribution in a situation of ethnic conflict and present a more internationalised perspective? In other words, how can media education or media reform help future journalists contribute to this effort?