Old/New Media Cultures in Modern Asia

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

In the age of digital media and ubiquitous presence of new media technologies, what roles can be envisioned for older media (such as print, radio, television and film) in the rapidly changing societies of modern Asia? Rather than witnessing a replacement of old media with new media cultures we see these forms co-existing and at times recombining with each other. The papers in this panel explore the dynamism of old and new media forms and technologies in sites of cultural production in Asia. We Jung Yi highlights how online streaming of Korean television dramas has allowed the rich tradition of melodramatic narratives of Korean TV culture to be maintained despite the ascendance of neoliberal policies in Asia. Riho Isaka explores how a regional book publishing industry in the Indian state of Gujarat is responding to the increasing pressures of globalization and recently introduced reading technologies like e-books. Koonyong Kim examines how the incorporation of old media forms (cinema and print poetry) into digital text by a Seoul-based art group opens up possibilities for re-imagining categories of 'the nation' and 'the human'. Kimberlee Sanders suggests that the incorporation of screens in Japanese live idol performances may enhance the ‘liveness’ of the music space whereas Nadia Loan discusses the deployment of innovative print genres towards crafting modern religious subjectivities of Pakistani urban women. The diversity of media forms and range of perspectives discussed by these panelists point to the alternative trajectories of modern media technologies, both old and new, in Asian societies.

Area of Study

• South Asia

Session Organizer

• Nadia Loan, University of Oregon

Chair

• Arafaat Valiani, University of Oregon

Individual Presentations

• The Indian Book Publishing Industry in Transition: Strategies of Regional Language Publishers in the Age of Globalization - Riho Isaka, University of Tokyo

• Korean TV Dramas in the Digital Age: Mobility, Morality, and Melodrama across Neoliberal Asia - We Jung Yi, The Pennsylvania State University

• The Screen Is Alive: The Girl Idol and Live Performance in 21st Century Japan - Kimberlee Sanders, Harvard University

• Mediating Old and New: Transmedia and Transnational Poetics in Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries' Digital Literature - Koonyong Kim, University of San Diego

• The Quran Workbook: Materiality and Devotion in Contemporary Pakistan - Nadia Loan, University of Oregon

Discussant

• Arafaat Valiani, University of Oregon