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In this essay I examine one particular feature of the films, the song-and-dance sequences, as they draw attention to the fractious nature of the postcolonial nation while simultaneously attempting to construct a space for the articulation of a consolidated national identity.

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.

Singapore has changed dramatically in the last forty years, moving in the 1960s and 1970s from domestic import substitution to low-cost exportoriented goods. Then in the 1980s developing a regional financial and business hub and now increasingly positioning itself as an exporter of capital and expertise (Courtenay 1995: 90). With exceptionally high economic growth rates most years, a GNP per capita of US$6,000 more than Australia and three times Australia’s annual average growth, Singapore has attracted a high percentage of foreign direct investment. Despite exhibiting similar advantages to Australia in terms of a well-educated workforce, competitive pricing, developed transport and telecommunications and citizens from culturally diverse business, family and personal networks throughout the region, Singapore’s media and resultant civil and civic development has not been as progressive and liberal as Australia’s and indeed has not kept pace. So it would appear that state existence, security and prosperity as desired ends for Singapore do not necessarily rely on an equal strengthening of the public sphere, or at least this is not evident to date.

Japan in the 1990s differs vastly from what it had been two or three decades earlier. The Japanese state has undergone such a fundamental change that it has been described as a ‘regime shift’ (Pempel 1998). Although the longterm ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has returned to power after its defeat in 1993, it no longer has an absolute majority in the Cabinet. Surrounded by numerous scandals and corruption charges, both the government and bureaucracy have undergone major reforms to increase transparency and reduce bureaucratic influence over the policy-making process. The Japanese Diet has, for example, passed the Information Disclosure Law to increase openness in the administration. Economic policies have also been transformed to cope with the malaise characterised by continuing problems of bad loans in the financial sector, rising unemployment and declining manufacturing productivity.

The question of why civil society presents such appeal for commentators, scholars and journalists writing about developing nations is an important one. The most likely explanation is that a kind of global faith exists in civil society as the driving force of a new world order. This global transformation, exemplified by the collapse of the Soviet bloc, celebrates people’s freedom to participate in public discourse, and ultimately in processes of directly electing political representatives. In this sense the concepts of civil society and the public sphere come together to describe a global anti-authoritarian groundswell where the power of ideas is linked to global cultural development.

Television was introduced to Indonesia in 1962 as part of President Sukarno’s flurry of nationalistic ‘symbol wielding’ associated with the Fourth Asian Games (Feith 1963). Televisi Republik Indonesia’s (TVRI) legal status as a creature of the president was reinforced further in Presidential Decree #27, 1963, when it was absorbed after the Games into the ‘Spirit of Sukarno Foundation’, a highly personalised institution under the direct control of the President. TVRI was established as a Foundation in its own right on 20 October 1963, with the President as General Manager (Presidential Decree #215, 1963). Article 3 nominates TVRI as the sole organisation authorised to establish and develop television stations in Indonesia, a highly significant provision which made the commercial broadcasters established in the 1990s dependent on TVRI. TVRI’s status as an activity of the TVRI Foundation was not formally revoked until the enactment of Broadcasting Law #24, 1997, although in administrative practice it came under the control of the Department of Information in 1966.

Modern Malaysia was established in 1963 following a drawn-out struggle against British interests which had occupied territory on Penang and Singapore and the Straits of Malacca in 1786, 1819 and 1824 respectively. In 1867 these outposts came under the control of the British Colonial Office and were governed as a Crown Colony. Although Britain did not directly colonise the Malay States, which remained legally autonomous, it imposed effective administrative control over Malaya and the Borneo territories from the late 1870s until the Japanese occupation in 1942.

Since the Korean War (1950-53), South Korea (hereafter Korea) has undergone a series of political changes. The move towards democratisation was largely spurred on by the demonstrations and riots occurring throughout the 1980s. In 1987 massive demonstrations forced the then President Chun DooHwan to call a new presidential election, and President-elect Rho Tae-Woo to implement more social reforms. The notion of civil society in Korea has been a relatively new concept until very recently, mainly because it has not achieved wide recognition from the public, media or the state. The development of a people’s movement advocating democracy could be said to be the foundation of ‘civil society’ in Korea.

Television first appeared in Hong Kong in 1957. It was a cable television service run by the Rediffusion Company which had operated a highly successful wired sound broadcasting service since 1949. Hong Kong was the first British colony to have television. But the Rediffusion television service was very expensive. Its monthly subscription fee was HK$55. In 1958, a technical worker’s monthly wages were HK$360 and an unskilled worker earned only HK$75 (Hong Kong Government 1959: 32). A year before the introduction of free-to-air television in 1967, Rediffusion television had only 67,000 subscribers (Hong Kong Government 1967: 206). Thus before 1967 television was an elite medium and its social impact was minimal.

The reform of media regulation can be read as part of the wider movement towards democratisation in Thailand in the 1990s. Real progress was made in media reform, yet as the traditional control of the Army has been reduced, the power of commercial media monopolies has grown. The main threat to further media liberalisation is now the growth of private monopolies. This was exemplified by the election of Thaksin Shinawatra in January 2001, as he is a media magnate on an international scale comparable with Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. Both men have used their communications business as a path to political power. The first part of this chapter will summarise Thai ideas about civil society, television regulation and the political context of media reform, followed by an analysis of how civil society issues are represented on Thai TV. Broadly, there are urban news and current affairs programmes of an investigative nature, and then there are rural-oriented programmes featuring community participation, notably Lan Ban Lan Muang. Finally, the prospects for media regulation since Thaksin’s election will be considered. The progress towards media reform made in the second half of the 1990s has since stalled under Thaksin’s new government.

In the uprising of 16-20 January 2001, which ousted former Philippine President Joseph Estrada from power, two forces stood out as pivotal: television (specifically the coverage of the impeachment trial which was the centre of public attention) and civil society (which was instrumental in the uprising itself). In this chapter I argue that notwithstanding the central importance of television in this most recent national political change, the regulation of the sector and its long-term associations with crony capitalism have established barriers to civil society finding its voice on television.

In January 1987, the Indian state-run television began broadcasting a Hindu epic in serial form, The Ramayana, to nationwide audiences, violating a decades-old taboo on religious partisanship. What resulted was the largest political campaign in post-independence times, around the symbol of Lord Ram, led by Hindu nationalists. The complexion of Indian politics was irrevocably changed thereafter. In this book, Arvind Rajagopal analyses this extraordinary series of events. While audiences may have thought they were harking back to an epic golden age, Hindu nationalist leaders were embracing the prospects of neoliberalism and globalisation. Television was the device that hinged these movements together, symbolising the new possibilities of politics, at once more inclusive and authoritarian. Simultaneously, this study examines how the larger historical context was woven into and changed the character of Hindu nationalism.

Globalization of Japanese popular culture is reshaping the global cultural landscape. Some forms of Japanese popular culture (such as video games animation and sushi) are well-received internationally, whereas others (such as pop music, films and TV dramas) are only popular in Asia. Of all forms of Japanese popular culture, video game is perhaps the most powerful due to its strong universal appeal. It has dominated the world market since the mid-1980s. This article uses Singapore as a case study to demonstrate the global popularization of Japanese video games. There has been a boom of Japanese popular culture in Singapore in the 1990s. In particular, Japanese video games, comics and animation have become an integral part of youth culture in Singapore (Ng, March 2000: 234-246; Ng, May 2000: 44-56; Ng, June 2000: 1-14). Video game is a neglected topic in cultural studies. Although there are some basic studies of Japanese video games in the Western world (Hayes & Disney, 1995; Herz, 1997; Kinder 1991; Monopolies, 1995; Sheff, 1993), its impact in Asia is largely unknown. This article is a preliminary study of the Japanese video game culture and industry in Singapore from historical and socio-cultural perspectives, focusing on consoles, games and players. Based on interviews, questionnaires and data from newspapers and magazines, this research aims at pro viding a general overview of the history and impact of Japanese video games in Singapore. All the data and analyses are basic and this is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss any particular issue or theory in details. This paper consists of four sections. The first three sections outline the development of home video game consoles, handheld electronic games and game arcades respectively. The concluding section pinpoints the characteristics of the video

Ma looks at the ways in which the identity of Hong Kong citizens has changed in the 1990s especially since the handover to China in 1997. This is the first analysis which focuses on the role, in this process, of popular media in general and television in particular. The author specifically analyses at the relationship between television ideologies and cultural identities and explores the role of television in the process of identity formation and maintenance.

Naficy explores the seemingly contradictory way in which immigrant media and cultural productions serve as the source both of resistance and opposition to the domination by host and home country's social values while simultaneously serving as vehicles for personal and cultural transformation and assimilation of those values.