Global Goes Local: Popular Culture in Asia

Cheap mechanical and satellite transmissions have made a predominantly North American culture available to a global audience. Does this mean that rock and roll, soap opera reruns and professional wrestling will destroy Asian traditions and leave Asian nations to produce nothing but imitations of a shallow, hedonistic alien culture? Far from it, according to this study. International scholars from a variety of disciplinary perspectives examine different forms of popular culture in Asia. Covering topics form pop music in Korea to TV commercials in Malaysia, this collection shows how imported cultural forms can be invested with fresh meaning and transformed by local artists to result in new forms of assertion and resistance that also meet the needs of their particular audiences. It addresses significant questions being considered by scholars of popular culture and offers case studies of how culture suffers, survives or prospers in Asian communities in an age of global communication.