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This book is about the processes of globalization, demonstrated through a comparative study of three television case histories in Asia. Also illustrated are different approaches to providing television services in the world: public service (NHK in Japan), state (CCTV in China) and commercial (STAR TV, based in Hong Kong). Through its focus, Global Media addresses a considerable lacuna in the media studies literature, which tends to have a heavy Western bias. It provides an original addition to the literature on globalization, which is often abstract and anecdotal, in addition to making a major contribution to comparative research in Asia. Finally, it offers a thoughtful causal layered analysis, with a concluding argument in favor of public service television.

Questions about the meanings of racialized representations must be included as part of developing an ethical game design practice. This paper examines the various ways in which race and racial contexts are represented in a selected range of commercially available e-games, namely war, sports and action-adventure games. The analysis focuses on the use of racial slurs and the contingencies of historical re-representation in war games; the limited representation of black masculinity in sports games and the romanticization of ‘ghetto play’ in urban street games; and the pathologization and fetishization of race in ‘crime sim’ action-adventure games such as True Crime: Streets of LA. This paper argues for, firstly, a continuous critical engagement with these dominant representations in all their evolving forms; secondly, the necessary inclusion of reflexive precepts in e-games development contexts; and thirdly, the importance of advocating for more diverse and equitable racialized representations in commercial e-games.

"Featuring Females analyzes the portrayals of women in a variety of outlets, including reality television shows, films, print and electronic news programming, magazines, video games, and commercial advertising. A highly esteemed group of scholars and researchers provides informed, original psychological study, and their thought-provoking findings address the ways in which aging, race/ethnicity, body image, gender roles, sexual orientation and relationships, and violence are treated in the media. Featuring Females is a diverse volume, exploring images and characterizations of women young and old and inspiring discussion of the effects that these representations have on girls, women, and society at large"--

Shanti Kumar's Gandhi Meets Primetime examines how cultural imaginations of national identity have been transformed by the rapid growth of satellite and cable television in postcolonial India. To evaluate the growing influence of foreign and domestic satellite and cable channels since 1991, the book considers a wide range of materials including contemporary television programming, historical archives, legal documents, policy statements, academic writings and journalistic accounts. Kumar argues that India's hybrid national identity is manifested in the discourses found in this variety of empirical sources. He deconstructs representations of Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the Nation on the state-sponsored network Doordarshan and those found on Rupert Murdoch's STAR TV network. The book closely analyzes print advertisements to trace the changing status of the television set as a cultural commodity in postcolonial India and examines publicity brochures, promotional materials and programming schedules of Indian-language networks to outline the role of vernacular media in the discourse of electronic capitalism. The empirical evidence is illuminated by theoretical analyses that combine diverse approaches such as cultural studies, poststructuralism and postcolonial criticism.

Globalization has intensified interconnectivity among television industries worldwide. Interconnectivity happens through structural and institutional linkages among television systems and industries worldwide, resulting in an increasingly integrated global business governed by similar practices and goals. The dynamics are reflected in the popularity of television formats. On the surface, global dissemination of formats may suggest not only the global integration of the economy of the industry but also the standardization of content. A dozen media companies are able to do business worldwide by selling the same idea, and audiences seem to be watching national variations of the same show. At a deeper level, however, formats attest to the fact that television still remains tied to local and national cultures. Bringing up examples of Latin American cases, this article argues that television is simultaneously global and national, shaped by the globalization of media economics and the pull of local and national cultures.

The Velvet Light Trap 53 (2004) 26-39 On December 2, 2001, HBO began airing Project Greenlight, a twelve-part documentary series chronicling the production of a feature film by novice writer-director Pete Jones. With its spectacle of backroom dealings, unchecked egos, and human frailties, the television series capitalized on the contemporaneous success of like-minded "reality" programs such as Survivor and Temptation Island. Perhaps more closely, Project Greenlight also tapped into the current vogue for the "behind-the-scenes" and the "making-of" genres, represented by straight-to-video titles such as Star Trek-Deep Space Nine: Behind the Scenes (1993), Making of Jurassic Park (1995), and The Matrix Revisited (2001), television programs such as the Sundance Channel's Anatomy of a Scene, HBO's First Look, and MTV's Making the Video, and the proliferation of behind-the-scenes and making-of packaging on DVDs. A reflection of the growth of film-related ancillary products in the 1980s, the ever-expanding Hollywood ego, and the demands of a twenty-four-hour television cable market, the increased appearance of the making-of documentary format no doubt also reflects the renewed interest in amateur filmmaking promulgated by the age of desktop video. Perhaps as a manifestation of this interest, making-of documentaries have become increasingly more detailed in their coverage. Whereas the 1981 television special The Making of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (Phillip Schuman) focuses mostly on the film's stunt work, special effects, location shoots, and set design, the recently released making-of documentary The Matrix Revisited focuses on script development, preproduction, production, postproduction, and exhibition, introducing viewers to costume designers, storyboard artists, and editors along the way. This attention to production detail can also be seen in Sundance's Anatomy of a Scene, which hones in on the construction, from music to costume to camera work, of a single scene. And certainly raising the bar on the level of detail included in the making-of genre is Project Greenlight, which is a "warts-and-all" look at film production, from squabbles over budgets to catering fiascos. Despite the making-of video's increased attention to the minutiae of filmmaking, one of the areas that remains outside the purview of most Hollywood making-of documentaries is the production of sex. Discussions about the cinematic logistics of creating a sex scene—how, when, and with what resources—are usually not featured in making-of documentaries. Of course, given our celebrity-driven culture, the question of sex vis-à-vis film production, particularly a Hollywood film production, is hardly absent from the publicity that surrounds a film. It is not uncommon to hear actresses or actors discussing what it was like to kiss another actor on the set. But these kinds of concerns are usually the province of entertainment magazines and television, not the province of ancillary related products such as the making-of video. While stories of roles requiring nudity or sex scenes abound on television shows such as Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, and E! News Daily,these kinds of topics are less likely to appear in production-generated documentaries. Indeed, while the production of the provocative sex scene between Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in Monster's Ball (Marc Forster, 2001) generated much discussion on television entertainment programs, talk shows, and newsmagazines, it was the film's prison execution sequence that was featured in the Sundance Channel's making-of special on the film. Given the lack of focus on sex scenes in most making-of documentaries, it is interesting to note that the two existing making-of documentaries for lesbian-made, lesbian-themed feature films—The Making of Bar Girls (1995) and Moments: The Making of Claire of the Moon (1992)—both heavily focus on the production of lesbian sex. Moreover, both lesbian making-of documentaries emphasize the cast's and the crew's sexual titillation over the creation of sexual sequences. In this essay I look at what this strategy reveals about the collective climate and concerns of lesbian feature filmmaking in the United States today.

The immediate aim of this chapter is to provide a critical overview of the place of lesbian films within New Queer Cinema. The task is not an easy one in a field which is as contentious as it is broad. The main difficulty seems to be how best to approach a range of definitions, from ‘new’ to ‘queer’ to ‘lesbian’, since with every one of them, we risk biting off more than we can chew. As often happens with formal titles, so with the New Queer Cinema, its lifespan (‘officially’ 1992-2000) now seems to have been a great deal shorter

In 1989, three years before the New Queer Wave was even invented or discovered, two very different yet interconnected films were produced on either side of the Atlantic. Both soon became critically successful and both would win a number of prizes at different international film festivals and venues. In retrospect, these two films have come to constitute the very incitement to the Wave. British filmmaker Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston premiered in early 1989 and American filmmaker Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied premiered later that same year, the latter including a still photo from the former so as to pay homage

Hong Kong is famous internationally as a financial market, a shopping paradise, and Chinese film production hub, but notoriously (and perhaps even attractively for some) Hong Kong is also a hotbed of piracy of computer software, DVDs, watches and toys.1 While many cultural products such as television dramas and movies are original and quite reputable in the region, media critics argue that the copycat phenomenon, which includes borrowing, inserting and modifying other cultural texts to augment local production, is common in the media and entertainment industries (Fung 1998). Whenever a new form, style, or popular culture trend emerges in Hong Kong, market forces soon kick in to replicate it. However, this kind of reproduction, as shown by the history of cultural production in Hong Kong, does not necessarily lead to a degradation of programme quality. Reproduction is not only a savvy strategy to reduce the financial risks inherent to new products, but also aims at producing ‘improved’ versions which can reap more profits for the industry.

In March 2001 a Japanese newspaper report entitled ‘Indians are addicted to a quiz show’ drew attention to a phenomenally popular television programme in India – a quiz show that attracts millions of viewers in which challengers strive to win prize money (Asahi Shinbun 2001). What was particularly eye-catching for the journalist was the profligately decorated studio set located in Mumbai (Bombay) and the caring guidance of the MC, a film star famous in India. The name of the show, as you might have already inferred, was Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

Unlike smaller nation-states in this study the People’s Republic of China has never really countenanced a scarcity of domestic television content. Supply has been constant, indicating both the importance and the sheer size of the sector. The nationalized broadcast media has for several decades churned out cheaply produced films, documentaries, dramas, and news programmes. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, however, audience demand for domestic content began to wane as more as more international programmes found their way into schedules, particularly in southern China. China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001 seemed to herald soul-searching among its media mandarins. What would happen? Would China be inundated by foreign content (the worst case scenario) or would China, as it has done over time, absorb and regulate foreign influences?

The previous chapter introduced in broad brushstrokes the issues at stake in this study, beginning with a critique of globalization and moving on to sketch in finer detail national television systems, the role of local content, and the economic importance of formats. The chapter concluded with a brief overview of the vagaries of copyright law as it applies to formats. Here, we initiate a discussion of Asian television systems beginning with a much different perspective on the ramifications of cultural borrowing. In this context we note that the format business straddles the divide between creative endeavour and innovation on the one hand, and slavish imitation on the other. This polarization manifests in widespread misunderstanding of the goals of format producers and distributors, and the role that formats play in the shaping of television schedules. We need therefore to flesh out the in-between issues. These are primarily concerned with the relationship between the format and its localization, television consumption within ‘cultural continents’, and changes in media systems. Taking this further we note the relationship between production and reception within Asia, the growth of television industries in the region and the relationship between formatting and new media distribution platforms that use interactive technologies allowing viewers to feedback responses. This exercise enables us to identify an alternative list of conceptual tools to those championed by political economy scholars.

From time to time certain television shows ‘stop the nation’. In 2002 the localized version of the Celador licensed format2 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? glued over a third of Indonesian television households to their screens at 7pm on Saturday nights.3 Is it the vicarious thrill of winning undreamed-of riches in a country which has been the slowest to recover from the Asian economic crisis of 1997 that attracts the audience? Circuses without bread? Perhaps, but this phenomenon is probably not profoundly related to local matters. We need look no further than the thin, phosphor coated screen. Millionaire, as it is referred to in television circles in Jakarta, is entertaining television. As other chapters testify, it has wowed viewers in countries in very varied economic circumstances. Millionaire is just one of a number of quiz and game show formats screening across all channels in Indonesia and is representative of the core business of international format providers in Indonesia which has been growing steadily since 1994.

Television has been called ‘a Western-originated project’ (Barker 1997: 5) and an institution of Western capitalist modernity. The global circulation of Western-centred, or more specifically, American-centred cultural products, contributes to the formation and dissemination of a global shared culture that reaches across the boundaries of nation-states. In the process American cultural products play a role in the formation of local television cultures.

Taiwan residents enjoy one of the most abundant television diets in East Asia. Eighty per cent of households subscribe to cable television services, offering a buffet of more than eighty channels including niche and full service channels. Taiwan’s television industry, while relatively small in comparison with its competitors in East Asia, has established a reputation for creatively re-generating formats developed elsewhere.

In the eyes of many observers the Philippine cultural icon that is synonymous with travel, as well as being the subject of numerous advertisements is the jeepney, a public-transport vehicle assembled in the style of the US military jeep but lengthened to accommodate from fourteen to twenty-two sitting passengers. What distinguishes the jeepney from run-of-the-mill public transport however is its artistic décor: a clutter and kaleidoscope of various artefacts from miniature steel horses dotting the hood, to massive, jazzy plastic or steel billboards announcing the name of the jeepney, to murals painted in fiesta colours at the sides, to a bizarre combination of items in the front windshield juxtaposing conflicting images of the Sto. Nino (the baby Jesus Christ) and stickers with sexually risqué messages.

Television programme format adaptation is becoming an increasingly significant phenomenon in India as it is in many other countries with an active domestic television industry. Some obvious successes stand out in recent years, such as Kaun Banega Crorepati, the licensed adaptation of Celador’s global format success Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and C.A.T.S., a licensed Hindi version of the US detective series Charlie’s Angels. However, sensitivity to local cultural nuances has been critical to their popular reception by Indian audiences. Yet despite a few high-profile licensed adaptations or copycatting, there are far more instances of unlicensed adaptations or cloning, sometimes subtle, other times not.

The US Army developed multiplayer online First Person Shooter video game, America's Army, was examined as the first instance of an entirely state-produced and directed enterprise leveraging video game popular culture. Specifically, this study is concerned with the potential of the America's Army gamespace as a US civilian-military public sphere of the Information Age, as assessed through Habermasian theories of democratic communication. Interview fieldwork was carried out in several America's Army game communities including those of real-life military personnel, Christian Evangelicals, and hackers. The political activities of these exceptional game communities are considered for the ways they escape and transcend current critical theories of Internet-based public spheres.

Why is the hit Singapore edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? must-see TV?1. Watch it so that you can hold the ‘hottest topic’ with your friends. 2. So you can be encouraged by the courage of some contestants who are bold enough to brave national TV when apparently they have not read enough. 3. So you can judge for yourself if you are bold (and knowledgeable) enough to brave national TV for your possible 1st million. 4. So you can call the number on screen and make your 1st million. 5. Finally, watch it to see for yourself that Singaporeans are not as well read and as globalized as we all think we are.

From the 1967 live satellite program "Our World" to MTV music videos in Indonesia, from French television in Senegal to the global syndication of African American sitcoms, and from representations of terrorism on German television to the international Teletubbies phenomenon, TV lies at the nexus of globalization and transnational culture. Planet TV provides an overview of the rapidly changing landscape of global television, combining previously published essays by pioneers of the study of television with new work by cutting-edge television scholars who refine and extend intellectual debates in the field. Organized thematically, the volume explores such issues as cultural imperialism, nationalism, postcolonialism, transnationalism, ethnicity and cultural hybridity. These themes are illuminated by concrete examples and case studies derived from empirical work on global television industries, programs, and audiences in diverse social, historical, and cultural contexts. Developing a new critical framework for exploring the political, economic, sociological and technological dimensions of television cultures, and countering the assumption that global television is merely a result of the current dominance of the West in world affairs, Planet TV demonstrates that the global dimensions of television were imagined into existence very early on in its contentious history. Parks and Kumar have assembled the critical moments in television's past in order to understand its present and future. Contributors include Ien Ang, Arjun Appadurai, Jose B. Capino, Michael Curtin, Jo Ellen Fair, John Fiske, Faye Ginsburg, R. Harindranath, Timothy Havens, Edward S. Herman, Michele Hilmes, Olaf Hoerschelmann, Shanti Kumar, Moya Luckett, Robert McChesney, Divya C. McMillin, Nicholas Mirzoeff, David Morley, Hamid Naficy, Lisa Parks, James Schwoch, John Sinclair, R. Anderson Sutton, Serra Tinic, John Tomlinson, and Mimi White.