The Master of Arts–Asia Pacific Policy Studies (MAPPS) program, is developing a new stream: “Media Representations of Asia: Culture, Religion, Nation” or “Media,” for short. Here is a draft description that will be posted to the MAPPS program site when it is finalized. The stream module will deal with contemporary media representations of Buddhism and Islam:
“Media Representations of Asia: Culture, Religion, Nation (Media)”
Stream Directors
Jessica L. Main, Alison Bailey, and Tsering Shakya
Overview
Representations of Asian cultures, religions, and nations are everywhere in traditional and new media, but they are not neutral; they serve political and strategic ends. Media representations are the outcomes of complex socio-economic interactions, both describing and directing popular and public action. Recognizing how these representations are used is crucial to analyzing contemporary politics and economics. Students in this stream will learn to recognize and evaluate the impact of these visual, spatial, and textual representations and cultural forms, and will interact with a broad range of media. This stream draws from transnational, interdisciplinary cultural studies, and policy-relevant religious studies.
The core module covers: (1) theories of representation; (2) images of Asian national cultures; and (3) stereotypes of Asian Religions. Among the issues to be considered are: the effects of media representation on policy; the relationship between media, religion, and violent conflict; new media and information technology; media and transnational Asian identities and the attempt to market Asian national “cool” culture; policies directed at the media, censorship, propaganda, and control of image. We will examine video and newspaper clips on recent events (such as popular movements and unrest in Iran 2009, Burma 2007, China 2008-2009, Thailand 2010; political implications of visits by the Dalai Lama; media portrayals of Islam).
3 Themes covered in the core module:
- Theory of Representation
- Images of Asian National Cultures
- Stereotypes of Asian Religions
(1) Theory of Representation
The module will introduce the basic theoretical concepts regarding what representations are and how they are employed in media (print, audio, visual, film), and space (monuments, museums, religious sites). Key terms include “politics of representation,” “culture,” “identity,” “hegemony,” “cultural dominance,” and “transnationalism.” We will explore these terms specifically as they relate to policy. Take “culture,” for example. Culture refers to webs of language and behavior within which people make their worlds intelligible. Culture, then, may be deployed and turned to the specific strategic advantage of those who create, maintain, and market it. At the national and state-level, cultural policy promotes domestic industries and artists, constructs or adapts a national culture, and exports cultural commodities. State governments also maintain policies of control and censorship. Culture is a form of “soft power” (national branding) actively deployed by many countries regardless of ideology.
(2) Asian National Cultures and their Spread
The module will examine the formation and spread of national identity and national culture. This is the process whereby a national identity, self-identification or other-identification of an individual as belonging to a particular nation, spreads across borders: the export and diffusion of representations linked to a particular cultural region, such as India or China (e.g. “Chinese transnationalism”), or to a particular religion (e.g. “Islamic transnationalism”). The spread of these identities has policy relevance in terms of propaganda, soft power, national branding, education and academia (textbooks), control of media representations, promotion of domestic industry and arts, and in terms of the movements of people, creation of diaspora, host country reception, flexible citizenship, human trafficking, cosmopolitanism (rural vs. urban).
(3) Stereotypes of Asian Religions
The module will encourage a critical suspicion of how Asian religions are stereotyped in media representations: Islam as “dangerous,” Confucianism as “authoritarian,” Buddhism as “pacifist.” In this section, we examine how representations of religion distort and cloud our understanding of the role that religion and religious organizations are playing in Asia. Beneath the stereotypes are real questions of religious nationalism, transnationalism, communist oppression of religious groups, and the separation of religion and government. Yet, it is the images of religion in media that have the greatest impact on policy decisions.
Preparation and Expectations
- IAR 500 MAPPS Core Course
- IAR 500 Media Module
Related Courses
- IAR 515A: Ways of Being / Ways of Seeing: Chinese Film and Identity
- IAR 515B: Buddhism and Contemporary Society: “Buddhism, Violence, and the State in Modern and Contemporary Asia”
- IAR 515P: Religion and Public Policy
- IAR 506: Culture and Globalization in Asia Pacific
- ANTH 551D: Cultural Studies in Communication and Interpretation
- SOCI 562: Mass Media and Communications
- WMST 506: Gender, Islam, Modernity, and the West
- *CHIN 309: Media Chinese I (Non-Heritage) (requires Chinese language ability)
Selected readings:
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. Verso, 1999.
Bell, Daniel A. China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society. Princeton University Press, 2008.
Bräuchler, Birgit. Cyberidentities at War: Religion, Identity, and the Internet in the Moluccan Conflict. Indonesia 75 (2003): 123-151.
Dissanayake, Wimal, ed. Colonialism and Nationalism in Asian Cinema. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Durham, Meenakshi Gigi, and Douglas Kellner. Media and Cultural Studies. Revised. Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
Flath, James A. Managing Historical Capital in Shandong: Museum, Monument, and Memory in Provincial China. The Public Historian 24. 2 (2002): 41–59.
Marsden, Lee, and Heather Savigny, eds. Media, Religion, and Conflict. Ashgate Publishing, 2009.
Maslog, Crispin C., Seow Ting Lee, and Hun Shik Kim. Framing Analysis of a Conflict: How Newspapers in Five Asian countries Covered the Iraq War. Asian Journal of Communication 16. 1 (2006): 19–39.
McCargo, Duncan. Media and Politics in Pacific Asia. Routledge, 2003.
Mitchell, Jolyon P., and Sophia Marriage, eds. Mediating Religion: Conversations in Media, Religion, and Culture. Continuum, 2003.
Ong, Aihwah. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999.
Said, Edward W. Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World. Vintage Books, 1997.
Tambiah, Stanley J. Buddhism Betrayed: Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Tekwani, Shyam, ed. Media and Conflict Reporting in Asia. AMIC, 2008.
Thomas, Amos Owen. Imagi-Nations and Borderless Television: Media, Culture and Politics Across Asia. SAGE, 2005.
Wei-ming, Tu, ed. The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
White, J.D. Global Media: The Television Revolution in Asia. New York: Routledge, 2005.