Asian Popular Culture: New, Hybrid, and Alternate Media

(Paperback)

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Asian Popular Culture: New, Hybrid, and Alternate Media, edited by John A. Lent and Lorna Fitzsimmons, is an interdisciplinary study of popular culture practices in Asia, including regional and national studies of Japan, China, South Korea, and Australia. The contributors explore the evolution and intersection of popular forms (gaming, manga, anime, film, music, fiction, YouTube videos) and explicate the changing cultural meanings of these media in historical and contemporary contexts. At this studys core are the roles popular culture plays in the construction of national and regional identity. Common themes in this text include the impact of new information technology, whether it be on gaming in East Asia, music in 1960s Japan, or candlelight vigils in South Korea; hybridity, of old and new versions of the Chinese game Weiqi, of online and hand-held gaming in South Korea and Japan that developed localized expressions, or of United States culture transplanted to Japan in post-World War II, leading to the current otaku (fan boy) culture; and the roles that nationalism and grassroots and alternative media of expression play in contemporary Asian popular culture. This is an essential study in understanding the role of popular culture in Asias national and regional identity.

Reviews

Emerging popular cultural and new media forms which have tended to evade historical and critical attention, now get thorough analyses by a diverse set of critics who create points of cogent analysis on the vast and diverse global map in Lent and Fitzsimmons' book. Clarity in these particular views creates a sense of the enormous change emerging in the cultures of Asia. -- Frenchy Lunning, Minneapolis College of Art and Design
This volume, an eclectic set of eight essays by an array of scholars and popular media specialists, covers Japan, China, South Korea, and Australia. What links these essays methodologically is the claim of interdisciplinarity with a focus on, to quote from the publisher's website, "the roles popular culture plays in the construction of national and regional identity." In actuality, the majority of these essays foreground Japan. For that reason, this collection will be of most interest to Japanophiles. Two essays explicitly cover regionality and globalization: one through a discussion of the history and diffusion of the board game Weiqi (Go), the other by examining online/handheld gaming in East Asia. The remaining essays are mostly "country specific," delving into the power of popular culture--from vinyl records in the 1960s to YouTube videos in the 2010sin the re/formation of national identity. Summing Up: Recommended. * CHOICE *

Author Bio

John A. Lent is publisher and editor of the International Journal of Comic Art and founding Chair of the Asia Pacific Animation and Comics Association. He was a university professor for fifty-one years. Lorna Fitzsimmons is associate professor and Coordinator of Humanities at California State University, Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles.