Telemodernities: Television and Transforming Lives in Asia
328
Telemodernities: Television and Transforming Lives in Asia
328eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780822373902 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Duke University Press |
| Publication date: | 09/09/2016 |
| Series: | Console-ing Passions |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 328 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
Fran Martin is Associate Professor and Reader in Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Wanning Sun is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Technology Sydney.
Read an Excerpt
Telemodernities
Television and Transforming Lives in Asia
By Tania Lewis, Fran Martin, Wanning Sun
Duke University Press
Copyright © 2016 Duke University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8223-7390-2
CHAPTER 1
Lifestyle Television in Context Media Industries, Cultural Economies, and Genre Flows
While in the introduction we outline the social, cultural, and economic background to the emergence of modern middle classes in China, Taiwan, and India as a broad context for understanding their contemporary lifestyle programming, here our focus turns to the political economy of lifestyle television in these focus countries. The rise of popular advice and infotainment programming, alongside popular factual television more broadly, can be linked to a range of pivotal developments within the TV industry both in the region and globally, with the late 1980s and beyond seeing a broad transnational shift to a deregulated, multichannel environment characterized by audience fragmentation and increased pressure for inexpensive programming that could potentially move across a range of markets (Moran 1998; Ellis 2000; Bonner 2003; Waisbord 2004). The 1990s in particular was a time of dramatic change in television industries across much of South and East Asia. While in many Asian nations, as in our three focus countries, television had hitherto been tied to and regulated by the nation-state, varied degrees of economic and state deregulation across the region saw the growth of commercialized forms of television linked to transnational flows of capital and programming. Pivotal here was the impact of commercial satellite television across the region — heralded by Star TV's groundbreaking trans-Asian broadcasts in 1991, a move that opened the way to a surge in advertising-supported television, the increased availability of foreign programming, and a rapid expansion of the number of channels in many Asian countries (Sinclair, Jacka, and Cunningham 1996; Richards and French 2000; Thomas 2005; White 2005).
Although this opening up of links between territories has seen the proliferation of transnational TV channels and the growing role of major global media players in the region (most often in partnership with domestic media companies), as we show in our discussion of China, Taiwan, and India, such shifts did not necessarily spell the end of state involvement in television. Indeed, in his book on the "television revolution in Asia," James D. White suggests that the opening of East Asian TV industries to global flows "may ultimately make [the institution of the state] stronger, albeit transformed" (2005, 10). Furthermore, across the region there are strong trends toward the localization of program content, associated with a rise in regional language and dialect channels, a growing number of domestic satellite players transmitting to diasporic communities, and the rise of local production houses producing content for a range of local, regional, and global markets (Thomas 2005; Keane, Fung and Moran 2007).
Such trends also mark a relative fragmentation and dispersal of once national audiences, albeit alongside the continued presence of strong state broadcasting in the case of China. The trend toward consumer-driven narrowcast modes of viewing has been further underscored by the emergence of new delivery platforms such as YouTube, China's Youku, and video-on-demand for downloading and streaming TV. New technologies for accessing and interacting with TV content have also changed the way people watch TV, with the regional investment in the 1990s in commercial communications infrastructure enabling the growth of Internet and mobile phone services in Asia (Thomas 2005; Turner and Tay 2009). As Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay (2009) note, the shift toward the consumption of TV content on screens other than television, for example, via mobile phones, suggests a growing challenge to conventional associations between television and family-based, domestic viewing practices (see also Neves 2015). However, of course, in parts of Asia such as China and rural India, domestic viewing is a relatively recent development, with audiences historically viewing TV in public or communal settings (Zhu and Berry 2009).
Drawing on examples from China, India, and Taiwan, this chapter discusses the political economy of lifestyle programming in Asia, as well as the cultural economy of genres and formats in these geopolitical locations. Highlighting the distinctive sociopolitical assemblages of our three focus countries, we offer institutional and historical snapshots of television in China, India, and Taiwan, and an overview of today's television landscape in each place, contextualizing contemporary lifestyle advice programming within this field. Drawing upon both original empirical and secondary data, we shed light on the array of intertwined political, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped the rise of lifestyle-oriented TV programming in our focus sites in Asia.
The Arrival of Television, Life Advice, and Consumer Identities in Reforms-Era China
Television first arrived in China in 1958. It was mainly used for the mobilization of the nation's citizens in the Chinese Communist Party's nation-building project and the promotion of desirable values for the construction of socialist modernity (Sun 2007). For that reason, news and current affairs — the "hard" stuff of television content — were the staple fare of Chinese television throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, television became the main source of entertainment as well as news, with television pioneering the marketization of Chinese media. Today, television has penetrated almost all Chinese households. While in 1978, there was only one television set per more than one hundred people and just ten million people with access to TV, today, television's penetration rate is estimated at 98 percent, and there are consoles in more than four hundred million households (Zhu and Berry 2009, 3; Neves 2015, 51). Television has thus transformed from a public medium commanding communal viewing to an everyday form of cultural consumption in the private home and, for younger people, a media form accessible via ubiquitous digital mobile devices (Neves 2015). Although still owned and controlled by the government, Chinese television is "simultaneously subservient and defiant, nationalistic and cosmopolitan, moralistic and fun-loving, extravagant and mundane" (Bai and Song 2015, 1). The content of Chinese television is now highly diverse, ranging from news, current affairs, and documentaries to myriad entertainment genres such as television dramas, quizzes and games, talk shows, reality shows, and a vast range of lifestyle programs. The dynamic and complex nature of Chinese television has been documented from the perspectives of funding, ownership, censorship, regulation, and institutional restructuring (Lull 1992; Chang 2002; Zhao 1998, 2008a, 2008b; Zhao and Guo 2005). Similarly, format development is seen as an area of dynamic change and innovation (Zhu 2012; Keane 2015). The cultural economy of television drama, one of China's most popular television genres, has also been a popular topic for analysis (Zhu, Keane, and Bai 2008).
To those unfamiliar with the development of mainland Chinese media, the multi-tiered structure of China's broadcasting industry today may be perplexing, yet grasping the breadth and complexity of this structure is crucial if we are to understand the institutional context in which China's lifestyle television programs are produced and consumed. First, the national broadcaster, CCTV, runs more than a dozen channels. Second, each of the thirty-odd provincial television stations, which are usually based in provincial capitals ("tier-two" cities), runs about half a dozen channels. One channel from each provincial station is available to national audiences via satellite, along with the satellite-transmitted programs produced by half a dozen metropolitan television stations such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen, and Chongqing. These latter stations, due to their location in tier-one autonomous metropolitan cities, fall directly under the administration of the central government and produce their own programs. Further down the geographic scale is county-and city-level television. While county-level television stations simply relay national and provincial content, city-level television produces a large number of lifestyle programs that enjoy a steady and loyal viewership due to a strong local relevance. These channels' programs are free to air and are transmitted terrestrially, available only to the viewers of the city and its adjacent counties. We argue that a full understanding of Chinese TV cannot be attained without taking seriously this so-called fourth tier of city-level television, which we discuss in detail in chapter 2.
The television industry in China is marked by intense competition for audiences. Since 1998, all provinces send their main television channels via satellite to a national audience, rendering obsolete the old scenario whereby provincial TV content was only seen by viewers in one province. The availability in urban cable-connected households of nearly thirty provincial satellite stations — some with more than one channel — plus a whole range of local channels has dramatically changed the Chinese television landscape, putting a decisive end to the monopoly of CCTV (Zhao 2008a, 96; Zhu and Berry 2009). Furthermore, Chinese viewers are now provided with a perplexing variety of programming packages, including free-to-air CCTV and provincial satellite channels, and additional digital channels delivered via set-top box. This means that both national and provincial channels have to develop distinctive brands in order to remain competitive. For instance, while Hunan TV held an uncontested position as China's top entertainment channel in the first decade of the new millennium, its monopoly has now been challenged by other entertainment channels such as Zhejiang TV, which has captured peak national ratings with its singing contest shows, including Zhongguo Hao Shengyin (The voice of China) and Jiangsu TV, which is well known for having pioneered dating shows such as Fei Cheng Wu Rao (If you are the one).
In general, scholars have noted the role of television or media more broadly in transforming the public culture of China from a socialist to a market economy (Zha 1995; Barmé 1999). However, Chinese television defies the standard dichotomy between state and private ownership. As an integral part of reforms aimed at commercializing China's media and cultural sectors, the Chinese party-state has adopted a strategy of maintaining state control over the media and cultural sectors while at the same time allowing investment by private capital, both domestic and foreign. While the production of news and informational content is deemed to be too important to be left to the private sector, and thus remains directly under the control of the state, non-news content, including entertainment and advertising content — usually considered to be politically less sensitive — is open to private-sector investment (Zhao 2008a, 202).
The fact that such non-news genres are open to private investment does not mean, however, that entertainment programs are quarantined from direct, and sometimes quite heavy-handed, regulation by state agencies. In recent years, the intention of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT — which changed its title to SAPPRFT in 2013 to include Press and Publishing) has become increasingly interventionist in its drive to secure control over entertainment content. In October 2011 SARFT issued a set of directives that shook up Chinese television in a number of profound ways. Among the changes stipulated in its "Further Recommendations on the Regulation of Provincial Satellite Television Programs" was an increase in the quantity of news, a reduction in the quantity of entertainment content, and an improvement of the quality of remaining entertainment programs. According to SARFT's official spokesperson, these recommendations were intended to address a worrisome tendency toward "excessive entertainization" (yule guodu hua). It is clear that "excessive entertainization" referred to both the quantity and quality of entertainment programs. A survey commissioned by SARFT in 2011 found that there were 126 entertainment programs on 34 provincial satellite television stations, mainly dating shows, talent contests, melodramas, games and quizzes, generalist variety shows, and talk shows featuring celebrity hosts. In addition, the "vulgar taste" of entertainment programs and the "widespread uniformity of entertainment formats" on Chinese television were charged with leading to a waste of resources on the one hand and a stifling of content innovation on the other (Xinhuanet 2011).
To map the most popular prime-time genres in light of the dual system of regulation by the state and the market, sketched above, in July and August 2011 we conducted a schedule-mapping exercise on six of the highest-rating nationwide channels: Hunan Satellite, CCTV-1, CCTV-2, Liaoning Satellite, Shanghai Oriental, and Jiangsu Satellite. The exercise revealed that on these popular channels, the commonest genres in the evening slots are drama, news and "soft" news (the latter encompassing current affairs, life advice, and talk shows), and entertainment genres including reality, game shows, variety, talent quests, and other competitions.
The ambiguity surrounding the issue of "ownership" in a state-directed commercialized context means that television professionals need to negotiate the dual mandate of making profit and delivering "correct" political content. This has led to three distinct arenas of Chinese television, which are reflected in the popular prime-time genres listed above: a politically "correct" but commercially unviable news sector, a highly popular but potentially risky entertainment sector, and a wide swathe of lifestyle advice programs that cannot compete with pure entertainment genres in terms of ratings but are much less controversial from the point of view of content regulation by state agencies. These lifestyle advice-themed programs feature across CCTV, provincial channels, and city-level television. They are hybrid in nature, combining news, entertainment, education, and public-service elements — and hence do not fit neatly into either news or entertainment categories. Furthermore, although not the highest-rating shows, they generate considerable revenue through product placement, infomercials, and product-sponsorship as well as advertising sales.
Seeing the Chinese version of Chaoji Jianfei Wang (The biggest loser) on CCTV's Financial Channel, one could be forgiven for thinking that Western style reality-lifestyle TV formats had arrived in China in earnest. And indeed, a glance at Chinese TV schedules today reveals that the Chinese television industry has enthusiastically taken up lifestyle (in Mandarin, shenghuo) topics. Some of the locally produced lifestyle-oriented shows — like CCTV-2's The Biggest Loser — are the product of a rising tide of transnational format trades in recent years with European and U.S. copyright holders including Endemol, Fremantle Media, and the BBC, which as Keane rightly observes are fundamentally reshaping China's television industry (Keane 2015; see also Keane 2002; Keane and Moran 2003; Oren and Shahaf 2012). Other programs combine lifestyle advice with regionally popular genres and aesthetics — for example, the studio-based comic variety shows that hark back to Japanese and Taiwanese roots, as exemplified by Channel Young's New Queen, discussed in chapter 2. Increasingly, locally produced lifestyle programs on metropolitan and national channels feature a mix of reality television, dramatized reenactments, studio interaction between audience and host, Oprah-style confessions, makeovers, and competitions between contestants. In addition to these globally familiar format elements, a large number of life advice programs also have a more distinctive local flavor, particularly those on city-level channels, which are mostly set in studio settings reminiscent of classroom learning. Perhaps the most notable example of indigenizing lifestyle TV in China is the accommodation of life advice topics into talk-show formats. The entertainment-oriented Hunan TV's Baike Quan Shuo (Encyclopedia), combining wisecracks and banter between hosts and guests with everyday life advice, is one such example (Guo 2011). Despite this wide variety, a couple of dominant themes stand out when we look at the bigger picture of lifestyle advice television in China today. First, there is a high concentration of programs targeting retired viewers — one of Chinese television's biggest audience segments — via health and well-being topics (yangsheng). Second, we also see many channels and programs targeting young urban adults aspiring to a cosmopolitan, middle-class ideal. Both of these trends form the basis of detailed discussion in the chapters that follow (see especially chapter 2).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Telemodernities by Tania Lewis, Fran Martin, Wanning Sun. Copyright © 2016 Duke University Press. Excerpted by permission of Duke University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments viiIntroduction: Telemodernities 1
1. Lifestyle Television in Context: Media Industries, Cultural Economies, and Genre Flows 25
2. Local versus Metropolitan Television in China: Stratification of Needs, Taste, and Spatial Imagination 52
3. Here, There, and Everywhere: Mediascapes, Geographic Imaginaries, and Indian Television 82
4. Imagining Global Mobility: TLC Taiwan 106
5. Gurus, Babas, and Daren: Popular Experts on Chinese and Indian Advice TV 126
6. Magical Modernities: Spiritual Advice TV in India and Taiwan 157
7. Risky Romance: Navigating Late Modern Identities and Relationships on Chinese and Indian Lifestyle TV 196
8. A Self to Believe In: Negotiating Femininities in Sinophone Lifestyle Advice TV 222
Conclusion: Negotiating Modernities through Lifestyle Television 254
Notes 271
Works Cited 281
Index 305
What People are Saying About This
"In this groundbreaking book Tania Lewis, Fran Martin, and Wanning Sun offer a highly nuanced account of television history in India, China, and Taiwan and of emerging Asian modernities, as well as a most welcome complication of the dominant theories of globalization and neoliberalism. Emphasizing the importance of location and the specifics of national and regional contexts for television, Telemodernities has the potential to significantly change the conversation about media, modernity, and Asia."
"Focused on the uncannily familiar-yet-strange world of Indian- and Chinese-language lifestyle television, this ambitious study asks what modernity is today, now that the engine room of global change has shifted decisively away from the West. Based on years of careful audience research, textual analysis and producer interviews, the answers are never less than eye-opening and, more often than not, mind-blowing. A revelation."