Globalization, Consumption and Popular Culture in East Asia

<!-- <description> -->This book aims to provide comprehensive empirical and theoretical studies of expanding fandom communities in East Asia through the commodification of Japanese, Korean and Chinese popular cultures in the digital era. Using a multidisciplinary approach including political economy, East Asian studies, political science, international relations concepts and history, this book focuses on a few research objectives. In terms of methodology, it is an area studies approach based on interpretative work, observation studies, policy and textual analysis. First, it aims to examine the closely intertwined relationship between the three major stakeholders in the iron triangle of production companies, consumers and states (i.e., role of government in policy promotion). Second, it studies the interpenetration, adaptation, innovation and hybridization of exogenous Western culture with traditional popular cultures in (North) East Asia. Third, it studies the influence of popular cultures and how cultural products resonate with a regional audience through collective consumption, contents reflective of normative values, the emotive and cognitive appeal of familiar images and social learning as well as peer effect found in fan communities. It then examines how consumption contributes to soft cultural influence and how governments leverage on its comparative advantages and cultural assets for commercial success and in the process augment national (cultural) influence. These questions will be discussed and analyzed and contextualized through the case studies of J-pop (Japanese popular culture), K-pop (Korean popular culture or Hallyu) and Chinese popular culture (including Mando-pop and Taiwanese popular culture).
<!-- </description> --><!-- <contents> -->Contents:Introduction:Introduction (Tai Wei LIM)Particularism within the Context of Universalistic Popular Culture: A Historiographical Survey Approach in the Literature Review of Soft Power in East Asia (Tai Wei LIM)Japan:Introduction to the Section on Japan (Tai Wei LIM)Size and Reach of the Japanese Popular Cultural Industry (Tai Wei LIM)Centering Akihabara: The Positionality of Tokyo's Pop Cultural Nucleus in Cool Japan Industries and Globalized Fandom Consumption (Tai Wei LIM)Observation Studies Fieldwork in Japan from 2012–2015 (Tai Wei LIM)Republic of Korea:Hallyu Power: The Transformative Impact of the Korean Wave (Wen Xin LIM)Hallyu Power: Cultural Policies of the Korean Government (Wen Xin LIM) Korean Wave (Hallyu) in Singapore: Policy Implications Hallyu and Its Background — The Southeast Asian Context (Wen Xin LIM, Tai Wei LIM and Xiaojuan PING)China:Reality TV in China (Xiaojuan PING)Yuzhaizu: A Study of Otaku Identity in Mainland China (Anying LIN)Hong Kong: Interview with a Self-identified Otaku JL, a Hong Konger Who Is a PhD Student on 30 March 2015 Monday at 9.30 pm in Singapore (Tai Wei LIM)A Survey of Cantopop Fandom in Hong Kong Up Till the 1980s (Elim WONG and Wilson LEE)K-pop Fandom in Hong Kong: A Fan's Perspective (Elim WONG)Taiwan: A Constructed “Immaginarium”: Cultural Dimensions of the Taiwanese Identity Construct (Katherine TSENG)ConclusionConclusion: Commonalities and Convergence (Tai Wei LIM)<!-- </contents> --><!-- <readership> -->Readership: Graduate students, researchers, and readers who are interested to learn more about the major features, dynamics of production and consumption and wider implications of popular culture in East Asia.<!-- </readership> -->Popular Culture;East Asia;Soft-power;J-pop;K-pop;Korean Wave;Hallyu;Chinese Popular Culture;Akihabara;Globalization;Consumption;Cultural Hybridity;Cultural Product;Media Agencies;Entertainment;Fandom;Creative Industry;Manga;Taiwanese Wave;Tai LiuKey Features:It is probably one of the few academic monographs examining J-pop, K-pop and Chinese (Shanghai and Taiwan) popular culture by adopting a regional framework that analyzes the major (North) East Asian economies using comparative approaches based on area studies. One may find this book useful in examining the commercially successful or prominent features of popular cultural industry in East Asia, and the important sub-topics of historical perspectives, production issues, fandom and consumption, government policies, cultural cross-pollination, etc.It is also one of the few publications to look at major creative industrial clusters like Akihabara. The last major trade professional publication to do so was in 2004None of the previous publications have yet included a chapter on the debate on particularism and universalism that can pave the way for important discussions on the complementarity and contradictions between globalization and particularistic localized features