Crossroads 2008 in Jamaica

Well, for those willing to have an eye on my research, I'll be presenting a paper at Crossroads 2008 in Jamaica. Needless to say, the apprentice work + MBA + participation @ a student orchestra did not leave me a lot of time for research...

So, the paper is entitled "Watching TV makes sense". About the emergence of a possible public sphere in East Asia through the consumption of Asian TV programs...

Still have a week to write the paper ;)

Here's the outline from UMAT conf. Any comments are welcome ;)

Watching television makes sense
The consumption of Asian television programs in Asia: a forthcoming sign of an epistemic community in Asia
Ubiquitous media, Asian transformations
Public sphere in Asia
Aska Monty, iCAT (Institute for Communication Arts and Technology), Hallym University

Introduction
a phenomenon dating back to the 1980s 1990s preceded by the consumption of mainly Western programs
the consumption of Asian programs as “foreign programs in Asia translates/echoes/reflects technological changes in Asia, the emergence and confirmation of audiovisual powers, as producers of soft power and cultural contents, better designed for an Asian audience

Asian consumption: a two-fold phenomenon
a negative response to the Western media imperialism
a positive answer towards a multi-polar power system in Asia

Public sphere, epistemic community
Different stages of the formation and gathering of Asian people
from the grass root level of consumption to the political/utopian level of polity constitution
Why study television programs?
Television as an interface between the public and the private sphere leading to the constitution of the social welfare (Mandeville)
the role of market as established by Rosanvallon: Can Television, as well as market, pacify relations inter alii?

Television as a political tool
Television moulds preferences: the Nation/State defines what the audience watches
News and sports, reflection of the national psyche, last bastions to resist against transnational flows of television consumption?

Television as a soft power
Television as a source of political representativeness
A way to change perceptions
Television programmes as weapons of soft power in Asia (i.e. anime, dramas, films…)
Litterature on public sphere and epistemic community
The structural transformation of the public sphere. An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (Habermas, 1989)

Communication and citizenship. Journalism and the public sphere (Dahlgreen, Sparks, 1991)

Imagined communities (Anderson)

Consumption in Asia (Chua)

Articles
UNESCO report (Nordenstreng and Varis, 1974): one-way flow of cultural production from the developed to the developing world

The economics of Television Program Production and Trade in Far East Asia (Waterman, Rogers, 2000)

Media imperialism revisited: some findings from the Asian case (Chadha, Kavoori 2000)



Methodology
Quantitative analysis:
Broadcasting strategies in eight Asian countries, among private and public broadcasters regarding imports of Asian programs

Qualitative analysis:
Interviews of television programs consumers about their viewing habits, their perception of foreign programs and their preferences

Raised issue:
Can the consumption of television programs in Asia foster and shoulder the emergence of a public sphere or an epistemic community in Asia? 
Consumption of television and sharing common values; mould for a common epistemic community in Asia
1.1 The discovery of the sameness/closeness through television programs
Identification process in the making
Cross border allegiance of taste
An offer shaped by the audience (market driven approach)
A comprehension of the unknown other eased by television consumption




1.2 Hindrances
transnational flows based on pop culture… dramas, cartoons
is light entertainment able to erase cultural differences, misperceptions?
Counterbalanced by the distanced relation to the media and the reception theories
The burden of history (colonial past…) and biased perceptions of the other moulded by past propaganda


II. Consumption of television programs in Asia: a political stance
2.1 Contestation and resistance force
a voice for the repressed in some Asian regimes, a voice of contestation in Asian communist authoritarian regimes, hence an enlightenment process in Asia through media consumption?
a resistance to American cultural imperialism or a resistance to the Japanese cultural imperialism in some cases
to be qualified in the proportion of American programs broadcasted generally in Asia, reflection of the legacy of history and the effects of media liberalization (Uruguay round)
to be qualified by the proportion of Japanese anime, dramas, products of the Japanese soft power, in Asia. Japan as a benchmark in Asia


2.2  A means to build an Asian community, polity
Consumption of Asian television programs and the emergence of a new cultural, transnational geopolitical map in Asia: the cultural contents producers versus the cultural contents consumers, translating, echoing new balances of power in Asia
Importers and exporters; the role of the State in fostering television contents or placing watchdogs on television programming in Asia
A polity threatened by a new kind of media imperialism produced by leading Asian states?
Hindrances: the preference for the local in a number of television fields (news, entertainment)
Qualifying the possibility of detachment towards local programs, news as the very last bastion of national sovereignty (however qualified by the way people consume news, and the way the news programs are produced)
III. Consumption of television programs and epistemic community/Asian polity: a down top process led by heterogeneous social categories
3.1  Public sphere and Habermas approach: its validity to the Asian context
Interactive approach valid in the Asian context: the discursive reason
Studies still on the making about forums, fans communicating to each other concerning their consumption of television programs
Public sphere and Asian youth: alternative ways of consuming culture and constructing shared values; shifting patterns of consumption in Asian programs
The Asian prosumers in the web.20 context : consumers and passers by of Asian programs (cf youtube and the case of Korean dramas, online consumption of Asian dramas in China…)
Current stage: clusters and networks rather than a true public sphere, epistemic community on the making

3.2 Redefining public opinion and public sphere? New modalities
Consumption of television programs in Asia calling for a redefinition of the very notion of public sphere
the consumption of television programs blurs the limits/frontiers between public and private sphere
the personal taste, mark of the very intimate, is made public

conclusion
Asian public sphere, epistemic community as a horizon
Cultural transnational flows and consumption as a founding basis for Asian cosmopolitanism