• Fall 2021
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24 Sep

Will Media and Creative Industries Have a Bleak Future in Hong Kong?

Grace Leung,
Chinese University of Hong Kong

Politics and economic are two contributing factors that affect the development of media and creative industry but the proportion of them is dependent on the specific context. In the past, economic factor played the major role in shaping media and cultural environment in Hong Kong, given that it is rated as the freest economy by the Heritage Foundation for decades.

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29 Oct

From Just-In-Time to On-Demand: A Manufacturing History of Streaming Video and its Conveniences

Marc Steinberg,
Conordia University

The temporal immediacy and conveniences of “video on-demand” have been central themes of accounts of video streaming platforms from Netflix to AbemaTV to Tudou. Overlooked is an earlier model of production that subtends the on-demand logics of internet-distributed video: just-in-time (JIT).

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19 Nov

The Politics and Economics of Independent Game Distribution in China and Hong Kong

Peichi Chung,
Chinese University of Hong Kong

The webinar studies the circulation of independent video game in the online distribution system of China and Hong Kong. It explores the ways that game content becomes available in the niched mobile independent game market of the region.

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11 Feb

Between Cultural Hybridization and Appropriation: The Meaning of 'K' in K-Pop

Lee Gyu-tag,
George Mason University - Korea

K-Pop began as a part of Korean local popular music in the late 1990s, but has become a global popular music genre firstly in East Asia since the early 2000s then even outside East Asia since the early 2010s. Especially, after the big success BTS and other bands in the late 2010s K-Pop is considered one of the hottest rising musical genres in the world.

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18 Mar

Before They Were Fugitives: Imported Films in the PRC 1978-1993

Wesley Jacks,
Lingnan University

Though valuable scholarship on film distribution in Mainland China has grown, the history of import circulation between 1978 and 1993 remains critically under examined. As the PRC began its gradual shift towards a market-based film industry, imports were a source of both political suspicion and economic attraction.

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13 May

Cultural industries and the state in South Korea: the importance of ‘hidden’ cultural policies

Hye-Kyung Lee,
King's College London

Everyone agrees that South Korea has a very active policy on the cultural industries. The Korean government’s dedication to foster the nation’s cultural economy, its ambitious goals and its commitment to public cultural investment have been well documented. In this talk, however, I want to draw attention to the importance of the ‘hidden policies’ that have played facilitating roles in ‘institutionalising’ the cultural industries.

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14 Oct

Re-Examining the ‘Cool Japan’ Policy— Malfunctioning Institutions, Collapsing Assumptions and Unproven Scenarios

Nobuko Kawashima,
Doshisha University

‘Cool Japan’ has been a cross-departmental policy agenda for Japanese government that has gained prominence over the last twenty years or so. Japanese government has traditionally been little interested in the area of cultural policy, largely leaving the matters of culture to the market economy since the end of WWII. Recently, however, attention has been given to the international popularity of Japanese popular culture such as manga and anime with policies aiming to cash in on what is named ‘Cool Japan’ phenomenon.

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2 Dec

Trafficking Data: How China is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty

Aynne Kokas,
University of Virginia

In Trafficking Data, Aynne Kokas looks at how technology firms in the two largest economies in the world, the United States and China, have exploited government policy (and the lack thereof) to gather information on citizens. Kokas argues that US government leadership failures, Silicon Valley's disruption fetish, and Wall Street's addiction to growth have fueled China's technological goldrush.

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24 Feb

The Birth and Death of Local Style: the Pacific Rim Art Toy Scene, 1999-the Present

Teri Silvio,
Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica

Art toys are original character figurines created by individual designers or small studios, which are not tie-in products for any media franchise. Since 1999, a large scene has developed around the Pacific Rim, featuring transnational networks of art toy designers, collectors, exhibitions, and vendors.

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