SOCI8023
Media and popular culture in Asian cities
Offer semester
Lecture time
Lecture venue
Credits awarded
2nd semester
Monday
19:00-21:50
MWT7
6
How does Hong Kong grow and empower with Asian popular culture?
How do J-pop, K-wave, Thai-horror and Indian-dance compete with Hollywood?
How do the Mainland Chinese pop-culture and variety shows capture the Asian markets?
~HOW DOES SOCIOLOGY SEE THE LINGAGES AND CLUES OF THESE QUESTIONS?~
Asian popular culture demonstrates critical development in the past decades for cultural diversity and uniqueness. On the one hand the various pop-culture dimensions of production and representation reflect heterogeneity; but on the other hand, the similar historical and cultural specificity of Asian cities lead the way for media growth with contrasting pictures relative to the Western world.
This course aims to introduce theories and complex issues in understanding and explaining Asia popular cultures. Basic theoretical concepts, for example Asian specificity, globalization, postcolonialism and transnationalism, will be discussed in the course. Further analysis will be started from the Hong Kong cases in cinema, television, stardom and advertising for seeing the position of the uniqueness of the city in Asia. Complexity of creativity and market concern, media representation and textual characteristics, and circulation and articulation of popular cultures of Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand and India will be discussed. Issues such as soft power, colonial hybridity, power dynamics of regional flows, cross-cultural reception, co-production of Chineseness and Asian-ness will be analyzed.
On successful completion of the course, students are expected to be able to:
Grasp some key concepts of media studies and popular culture;
Analytically engage in the current academic debates over mass media and popular culture in Asian societies;
Demonstrate an awareness of and reflect on the impacts of popular culture and mass media in modern societies; and
Apply the basic concepts and theoretical perspectives to an analysis of popular culture and media in Asian societies.
Tasks
Weighting
Class Participation
20%
Group Presentation
20%
Reflective Journal
25%
Individual Essay
35%
Students are welcomed to make appointment for consultation with the lecturer; and after the teaching of Area C, a specific class will be run as consultation for all students as a preparation of writing.
Key References
Choe, Youngmin and Kim, Kyung Hyun (eds.), The Korean Popular Culture Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).
Chua, Beng Huat and Iwabuchi, Koichi (eds.), East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing the Korean Wave (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007).
Chu,Yiu Wai, Hong Kong Cantopop: A Concise History (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017).
Craig, Timothy J., Global Goes Local: Popular Culture in Asia, (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002).
Iwabuchi, Koichi (ed.), Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Dramas, (Hong Kong : Hong Kong University Press, 2004)
Katzenstein, Peter J. and Shiraishi, Takashi (eds.), Beyond Japan: The Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006).
Tsutsui, William M., Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization, (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Association for Asian Studies, 2010).
Zhu, Ying and Berry, Christopher, TV China: A Reader on New Media. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2009).
中文參考資料
朱耀偉，《香港流行文化的(後)青春歲月》（香港：中華書局，2019）。
吳俊雄、張志偉編，《閱讀香港普及文化1970-2000》（香港：牛津大學出版社，2002）。
李天鐸、邱琡雯，《日本流行文化在台灣與亞洲》I, II（台北：遠流出版事業，2008）。
邱淑婷，《中日韓電影：歷史、社會與文化》（香港：香港大學出版社，2010）。
洛楓，《世紀末城市：香港的流行文化》（香港：牛津大學出版社，1995）。
劉輝、傅葆石編，《香港的中國：邵氏電影》（香港：牛津大學出版社，2010）。
鍾樂偉，《心韓：攻陷人心的韓流真面目》（香港：天窗出版，2015）。
Offer Semester | Lecture Day | Lecture Time | Venue | Credits awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2nd semester | Monday | 19:00-21:50 | MWT7 | 6 |