Bücher der Reihe Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia

"Examines the international relations of Southeast Asia, focusing on how these are affected by the special Indonesia-Malaysia bilateral relationship - Malaysia and Indonesia, although separate states, can be seen as constituting a single Indo-Malay cultural world"--

Across Asia, consumer culture is increasingly shaping everyday life, with neoliberal economic and social policies increasingly adopted by governments who see their citizens as individualised consumers. This book explores how far everyday conceptions and experiences of identity are being transformed by media cultures across the region. It considers a range of media in different Asian contexts, contrasting how the shaping of lifestyles in Asia differs from similar processes in Western countries, and assessing how the new lifestyle media represents not just a new emergent media culture, but also illustrates wider cultural and social changes in the Asian region.

K-pop, described by Time Magazine in 2012 as "South Koreäs greatest export", has rapidly achieved a large worldwide audience of devoted fans largely through distribution over the Internet. This book examines the phenomenon, and discusses the reasons for its success. It analyses pop fandom and cultural agency through analyses of fan practices, discourses, and underlying psychologies within their local habitus as well as in expanding topographies of online networks. Overall, the book addresses the question of how far "Asian culture" can be global in a truly meaningful way, and how popular culture from a "marginal" nation has become a global phenomenon.

The Chinese internet is driving change across all facets of social life, and scholars have grown mindful that online and offline spaces have become interdependent and inseparable dimensions of social, political, economic, and cultural activity. This book showcases the richness and diversity of Chinese cyberspaces, conceptualizing online and offline China as separate but inter-connected spaces in which a wide array of people and groups act and interact. The book argues that online spaces allow their users greater "freedoms" despite ubiquitous control and surveillance by the state authorities. The book is a sequel to the editors¿ earlier work, Online Society in China (Routledge, 2011).