Asian television: Global trends and local processes

Abstract

This study portrays the rapid changing Asian television scene, in broad social processes, of which some are global, some are uniquely Asian. These interlocking trends and processes include the policy oscillation between state control and liberalisation, the contradic tions between media internationalisation, regionalisation and indigenisation, and the discursive struggle between Western and Asian television culture. This mid-rang and context-sensitive analysis is an attempt to supplement the catch-all generalisation of academic discourses such as globalism and media imperialism, which we think are incapable of describing the non-linear and asymmetrical nature of media exchanges between Asia and the West.