Media and Celebrity Culture

Week 8 - 28th August 2012

  We can get our news and entertainment from more sources than ever before because of the emergence of the Internet. It is an irresistible general trend that the ratio of media environment and representation has changed into an era of personae where an online culture consists of different platforms that allow for different flows of messages, media and images to publish of the self. Celebrity culture is a good example of culture exchange and movement from the private to the public, the individual over the social formations.


http://www.twi5.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/
twitter-apps-celebrities-that-twitter-celebrity-twitter-feed.jpg

  Celebrity and gossip both are always together, like a person and his shadow; celebrity relay on gossip to generate media exposure while gossip relay on celebrity to produce gossip. This activity can be defined as self-production which “the elaborate celebrity gossip can be seen as providing a continuity of discourse around the presentation of the self for public consumption” (Marshall, 2010, pp.36-37). Generally, gossip is revealing celebrity’s private experiences to uncover a hidden truth about celebrity and their image (Marshall, 2008, p. 499), and usually reveals via paparazzi. But now it reveals via social media and sometimes originally discourse from celebrity their selves. The recent photo scandal of Prince Harry is a good example. 



http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQobDdoILzRy
RWYjUmIlCaYdUfaPcX-GvOjfFBvdG7X51QO8ZD_&t=1

I am not a Chinese Twitter Micro Blog user but I am familiar with it as my friend is a Micro Blog user who follows every pages and status of her favorite’s celebrities and brand products, and every time she checks status, she will share and discuss with me. I don’t even have to buy any second-hand sources such as a printed newspaper or magazine to get first-hand news and information, but by “like” or follow celebrity’s Facebook pages or Micro-blog. In which, these “Friends” and follower also created a micro-public networks which is part of an individual’s online persona, and an intercommunication that an individual’s movement (e.g. you “like” Starbucks page and made comments, both physical and virtual movement) exchange between the personal and the highly mediated.

 

Talks and speeches about blogging and microblog in China:

1. Yang Lan: The generation that's remaking China

2. Michael Anti: Behind the Great Firewall of China

 

Reference:
Marshall, P.D 2008, The Specular Economy, Society. Vol. 47, pp.498-502.

Marshall, P.D 2010, The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media, Celebrity Studies, Routledge, London, pp. 35-48.

The Effectiveness of Narrowcasting

Week 7 - 21st August 2012
 


http://www.elainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/moods_and_weather.jpg

  Continued from the preceding blog, for diasporic people or exile, because of they are living outside from the homeland where its national culture has already unbreakably embedded in their identity, thus a need for satisfy their nostalgia and not to be disconnectedness with their homeland. The emerged networked, digital and mediated space of cyberspace provides an easy and efficient way for diasporic communities to maintain connection with the homeland. The media such as narrowcasting television and online video (e.g. YouTube or Vimeo) are good examples.

  Naficy (2003) divided narrowcasting into three categories of television, in which I would like to talk about transnational and diaspora television. “Transnational television consists primarily of media imported into the USA or of programs produced by USA and multinational or transnational media concerns”; and “Diaspora television is made in the host country by liminars and exiles as a response to and in tandem with their own transitional and/or provisional status” (Naficy, 2003, pp.51-52).

  The only narrowcasting television I familiar with and fits to definition of transnational and diaspora television, in Australia, is TVBJ, the only satellite television channel in Australia offering audience all TVB programs in Cantonese.

TVB, Television Broadcasts Limited is the second over-the-air commercial television station in Hong Kong. TVBJ emerged in Australia since July 2000. TVBJ mainly broadcasts programs produced by TVB in Hong Kong, including news, drama series, entertainments and informative programs etc. In which, those drama series are all “made in Hong Kong” and broadcast simultaneous with Hong Kong. Besides, TVBJ also produces and broadcasts local news and informational programs such as Australian News, PublicForum etc. which all produced at Australia.



http://bonnielovestvb.files.wordpress.com/
2012/02/tvb_logo1.jpg

  I guess what make narrowcasting television effective are they are broadcasted in foreign languages which limits audience reach and helps the diasporic people or exile to negotiate “a sense of order in the life of its viewers by producing a series of systematic patterns of narration, signification and consumption that set up continually fulfilled or postponed expectations” (Naficy, 2003, p.53).

  Or maybe an alternative reason for the effectiveness of such narrowcasting television can be it attracts consumer, benefit to earn profit. As I don’t have a television at home, so the only chance that I can watch TVBJ is when I go to a Hong Kong style’s restaurant for a meal.

 

Reference:
Naficy, H 2003,'Narrowcasting in diaspora: Middle Eastern television in Los Angeles', in KH Karim (ed.), The media of diaspora, Routledge, London, pp. 51-62.

Making Culture Part II - Nostalgia of Exile

Week 6 - 14th August 2012

   Continued from the preceding blog, due to political, educational, and economic movements such as the Cultural Revolution and the June 4^th Incident in 1989, and the decolonization in Hong Kong, a massive number of Chinese and Hong Kong residents left and immigrant to overseas since 1980s. For these people now living outside China in the age of globalisation, how do they perceive their identity? What is the role of the different media in the making of diasporic and immigrant cultures? How do satellite television, internet, mobile phone coverage etc. create a media space that cuts across national boundaries to form a transnational space?

  Appadurai describes this group of diasporic people or immigrant community as “anguish of displacement” and the “nostalgia of exile” (Sun, 2002). It is because of they confront a complex situation in a diasporic public space, where living in-between national space vs. the homeland, such as racial differences, “foreignness” appearances, accent and behaviour; and the disconnection with China increases desirous of maintaining their regular consumption of Chinese cultures (Sun, 2002).

For example, immigrant communities (former mainland Chinese) would watch Chinese television drama series by install a satellite television. Satellite television provides an immediate access of the latest news of mainland China to former mainland Chinese; you do not have to be at a certain location or face-to-face communities to receive certain information, it is non-physical nature, also called virtual neighborhoods.

Indeed, even I am not an immigrant from Hong Kong but a temporary overseas student in Australia, I still do not like being disconnected with my homeland; I do not have a satellite television but I could purchase Chinese television drama DVDs at Chinese DVDs shop that opened by former mainland Chinese (or download from the internet), reading electronic newspapers from Hong Kong’s website, watching Chinese film at Australian cinema, talking to family on the phone with Facetime etc. to maintain my connection with my homeland; all of these media together to cut across China-Australia boundaries to form a transnational space.

  With the emerged networked, digital and mediated space of cyberspace, it is so easy for diasporic communities to form and exchange information and maintain relationships, and make new and hybridized cultural identities.

Reference: Sun, W 2002, ‘Fantasizing the homeland, the internet, memory and exilic longings’, Leaving China: media, migration, and transnational imagination, Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., pp. 113–36.

Making Culture Part I - 1 Nation 2 Systems

Week 5 - 7th August 2012

Hong Kong
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E7%BB%B4%E6%B8%AF%E5%A4%9C%E8%89%B2.jpg

  The term national culture refers to the value system and pride associated with a nation. For me, a Hong Konger, national culture is an intriguing topic to talk about. Hong Kong is one of two special administrative regions of the People’s Republic of China (also known as OneNation, Two Systems) since 1997. The period of being colonised by the British Empire greatly influenced the current culture of Hong Kong, especially the culture variations from Mainland China.

  Firstly, identity has always been an important issue to every Hong Konger since the British resumed control in 1997. During 1990s, Hong Kong residents were afraid of being part of communistic society, or felt incredulous of 1 Nation 2 Systems, led to a massive number of people leave Hong Kong and immigrant to overseas. In which, it brought a great influence to Hong Kong political cinema.

  Hong Kong films such as Bodyguards of the Last Governor 港督最後一個保鏢 (Alfred Cheung, 1996), Gigolo ofChinese Hollywood 電影鴨 (Chung Shu Kai, 1999), Lan Yu 藍宇 (Stanley Kwan, 2001), trilogy of Infernal Affairs 無間道 (Andrew Lau & Alan Mak Siu-Fai, 2002, 2003) etc., these films known as political films are all expressed such identity concern and culture variation between Hong Kong and China, similarly and metaphorically.



http://www.wjl.cn/torrentimg/c378e171c7bba7e4e7bca2de69021fd117b9b946.jpeg

  In 2004, in order to have Hong Kong and Mainland get closer together economically, Chinese state had the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangemet (CEPA) implemented with Hong Kong. In which, it also provided a door of Mainland-Hong Kong cultural exchange, apart from economic development.

"We're destined to fall for a scam or two." - Love in the Buff 2012
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tZFbqG2PuAk/0.jpg

For example, a Hong Kong domestic style films – Love in a Puff 志明與春嬌 (Pang Ho-Cheung, 2010) greatly reflected the modern culture of Hong Kong – smoking and Hong Konger’s value of love and sex; and due to the Chinese micro-blog users’ promotion, the box office of Love in a Puff was even more impressive than expected.

In 2012, the continuation of Love in a Puff, Love in the Buff 春嬌與志明 (Pang Ho-Cheung, 2012) has expanded the issue of Mainland-Hong Kong culture variation, giving different value views of love and sex from Mainlander and Hong Konger by applying few Mainland actors/actresses. Such Mainland-Hong Kong co-production indicated the usual restrictions on style and content to domestic film because of CEPA (Zhu & Nakajima, 2010).

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg51kcOO9LF7sKOm_HzgAoB22hdICaOkicYvsPdjXqW5BkkTFeMkIW9fI-qydQ0I5N9xreaFEQi-qA1BKCmal_ATn-tHSJuMDs43SR_KlkRzpHAfjWGSQZGuIF7M2VY6RvP8Zy2xDRFMVDX/s1600/love+in+a+puff.jpg

Reference:

Rosen, S & Zhu, Y., 2010, ‘The Evolution of Chinese Film as an Industry’, Art, Politics, and Commerce in Chinese Cinema, pp.15-33, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong

Olympic + sponsors = Global Event??

Week 4 - 31 July 2012

  There was a debate on this week tutorial – are the Olympic a truly global event? I prefer it is a matter for one’s own perspective and angle. The Olympic could be a positive and negative global event.

http://www.london2012.com/photos/galleryid=1303934/#fireworks-off-the-tower-bridge

  Politically, what counts as a ‘global’ event? In dictionary, global refers to involve the entire earth, covering, influencing and relating to the whole world. When I was watching the athletes walk in the stadium with their national flags on the opening ceremony, the number of nation is more than enough to rise an international gaming competition, even they have a ‘nation’ for independent Olympians. It seems the game is having every single nation joined and is fair and equal.

But when I looked into the International Olympiccommittee (IOC) or Organising Committees for the Olympic Games, I bet you that those members’ nationality of these committees never equal to the number of national flags that appear on the opening ceremony. Westerner always calls for democracy, then why would the choice of the host city depend on the vote of the IOC session but not a vote of people from all around the world??



Economically, there is no doubt that sponsors and the host city are the first unit benefited from the Olympic. The Olympic Games is a heaven for advertiser, it gives an effective and glorious platform for them to globalize their product. Indeed when facing a huge expends in the Olympic, sponsorship is the best solution. But negatively, it could have issues like - Has sponsorshipspoilt the Olympic spirit?, to the Olympic. Besides, the profit made from tourism and service industry is even more impressive under the European debt crisis.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYsGlZSFAeP9f9tdSkaQOyT6QtZEHP08WseLjO3LDIro-CJKc6weeoIQZGzeSugEo2AuTPwKf5q3UEjMgFbDegH7YxTAcu2CyCc9qJmFJFXwD_60scTUiOSRrn20QsUqbzBBO6CMvaOrM/s1600/Olympics+McDonalds.jpg

Culturally, apart from the content of the opening ceremony, there is only cultural exchange between athletes, and athletes and the host city/country.

http://www.london2012.com/photos/galleryid=1303934/#view-the-olympic-stadium-during-the-opening-ceremony

http://www.london2012.com/photos/galleryid=1303934/#france-fans-celebrate-trafalgar-square

Global Media Empires - Americanisation

Week 3 - 24th July, 2012

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/east-vs-west.jpg

  Indeed, Western cultures have been played a dominant role in the world’s economic and culture for over the past few centuries. Especially, the United State America, the first world’s economic leading nation has the most affection on Western cultures. It seems no doubt for Americanisation when you are going McDonald for a lunch, watching The Dark Knight Rises – typical Hollywood made film, or listening to music that listed on The Billboard.com by using Apple iPod.

  In terms of media industry, most of the production / broadcasting / journalism companies are distribution companies of one Media Empire. For example, the News Corporation, the world second largest media empire, owned by Rupert Murdoch. One of the popular holdings of News Corporation is Fox Filmed Entertainment, a parent company of 20thCentury Fox. From 20t Century Fox, distribution companies included Fox Searchlight Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures, 20^th Century Fox Television. This is monopoly, or you could say oligopoly – a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers (Oxford Dictionary 2012).

http://news.doddleme.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/20thcenturyfox1.jpg

  Media empires such as News Corporation and Walt Disney Corporation can be referred as dominant media. They consist of 3 conditions: “the ability of big media to limit diversity, to control key economic factors and to shape political agendas”, “the media function in ways that are both political as well as economic”, and “not only size alone but international reach and not only news or editorial content but also cultural and political influence” (Steven, 2003, pp.38-41).

  Apart from that 3 conditions to be a dominant media, Niall Ferguson, a historian suggested other reasons why Western cultures rise, at a TED speech in July 2011 - The 6 Killer Apps of Prosperity.

Reference:

Steven, P 2003, ‘Political economy: the howling, brawling, global market place’, The no-nonsense guide to the global media, New Internationalist, Oxford, pp. 37–59.

What is missing from that definition?

Week 2 - 17th July, 2012

 

  I found that it is so hard to define ‘globalisation’, neither scholarly nor unscholarly. Indeed, every scholar has their own recognition and interpretation of globalisation, which makes it harder to unify a definition and usually those definitions have something missing as time goes by.

  Albrow (1990: 45) defined globalisation as ‘all those processes by which the people of the world are incorporated into a single world society, global society’.

  Albrow’s definition might be good at the time of 1990 but it is an out-date definition after 22 years later.

  In my opinion, there are two ambiguous parts.

First, it undefined the processes of globalisation. I don’t get a chance to read the words before and after that definition, maybe it well defined the processes of globalisation on Albrow’s book. But if it reads independently, I wouldn’t understand what those processes are and how those processes make a single world society. It should be mentioned in the definition, that the processes of globalisation have occasioned a mixing of worldwide economic, political (e.g. a destabilizing of nationalist positions), cultural (e.g. the rise of hybrid cultures) and social relation (e.g. the study of postmodernism and post-colonialism). Besides, the key role of mediation in the process of globalisation should be also mentioned. It is important to look at the ways media and communications are present in politics, economic and culture, directly and indirectly (Rantanen, 2005, pp.5).

Second, in what ways the world becomes a single world society, a global society? It surely doesn’t mean there is no nationality, no race. It involves the flows of globalisation and mediation. For instant, it is a compression of time and space (Bauman, 1999), the movement of news and information from telegraph to radio and print, and to Facebook and Youtube.

Reference: Rantanen, T 2005, ‘Theorizing media globalization’, The media and globalization, Sage, London, pp. 1–18.