Media and popular culture in Asian cities
SOCI8023
Unavailable this year
Lecture venue
Lecture time
Offer semester
This course addresses the social, political, and cultural dynamics of the modern communication media – TV, film, music, radio, the press, and other new media technologies – and their impacts on popular culture in Hong Kong and other Asian cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo, and Singapore. It enables you to critically examine how media and popular culture construct our identities, shape everyday life, and generate public debates.
Topics include the media; sex and violence; consumption and youth cultures, romance and gender identity; regimes of body management; desire and social identities; lifestyle distinctions and social hierarchy; on-line communication and cyber personas; media events and imagined communities; new media and technologies; and the commercialization of arts.
Upon completion of the course, you will 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 Journals
25%
Individual Essay
35%
There is no textbook for this course. However, the following titles will give you a comprehensive review of the current debates on media studies and popular culture in Asia.
Berry, C., Liscutin, N. and Mackintosh, J.D. (eds.) (2009) Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia: What a Difference a Region Makes. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Curran, J. and Park, M. (ed.) (2000). De-westernizing media studies. London, New York: Routledge.
Erni, J.N. and Chua, S.K. (eds.) (2005) Asian Media Studies. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Fung, A.Y.H. (ed.) (2013) Asian Popular Culture: the Global (dis)continuity. London; New York: Routledge.
Iwabuchi, K. (ed.) (2004) Feeling Asian Modernities: Transnational Consumption of Japanese TV Dramas. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Lo, K.C. (2005) Chinese Face/Off: The Transnational Popular Culture of Hong Kong. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.