America Through the Eyes of China and India: Television, Identity, and Intercultural Communication in a Changing World

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Description

America has long exported its network and cable programming abroad, but with a changing world comes a changing dynamic. As global centers of power shift, and wealth becomes redistributed, and perhaps even re-centered, vast audiences which have never before had contact with American television will begin to gain access to the full wealth and abundance of American programming. The opening of new markets and new audiences, particularly within the growing superpowers of China and India, presents us with a novel situation. It is one thing for a show like The OC to be played in a nation like England, where the cultural and religious differences with the United States are not that profound, and quite another for it to air in a nation like India, where arranged marriages, the caste system, and pervasive poverty are still everyday realities. America Through the Eyes of China and India explores the dynamics of television, identity, and cultural communication, providing a new lens for encountering, interpreting, and judging American culture and the American identity.

Reviews

This book is a stimulating, fast-paced look at the way others'in this case the two looming Asian superpowers, China and Indialook at us', via the lens of television. Through a discussion of Chinese and Indian interpretations of popular shows such as Friends, Lost, and The Simpsons, Dr. Sherman sheds new light on a heady mix of glamor, glory, dislocation and malaise that characterizes US and global media culture in the early twenty-first century. Part travelogue, part academic analysis, topped off with unrelenting black humor, America through the Eyes of India and China is sure to engage anyone interested in intercultural relations and (mis-)communication. -- James Mark Shields, Assistant Professor of Comparative Humanities and Asian Thought, Bucknell University
Simultaneously serious and humorous, Sherman's book offers valuable lessons on culture, identity, and what it means to be American in a world in which pluralism continues to be important despite globalization. -- Robert Paul Churchill, Professor of Philosophy, George Washington University

Author Bio

Edward D. Sherman received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in the area of religion and culture. He is currently working as a dean at an independent school in New Jersey and teaches courses in religion and history.