The Japanese media system is in a state of flux as a result of shifts in the digital economy, new audience metrics and declining print and broadcast revenues. This volume examines issues of media consolidation, participatory culture and franchising in contemporary Japan, and explores how the Japanese media system is adapting to change in light of its tendency toward prioritizing domestic markets, restricting access and co-opting fan movements. The chapters consider conflict and negotiations within the Japanese media system, structural transformations, emerging modes of producer and audience relations and potential sites of innovation.

Untangles the web of commodity, capitalism, and art that is anime

The development of digital media presents a unique opportunity to reconsider what communication is, and what individuals, groups, and societies might hope to accomplish through new as well as old media. At a time when digital media still provoke both utopian and dystopian views of their likely consequences, Klaus Bruhn Jensen places these ‘new’ media in a comparative perspective together with ‘old’ mass media and face-to-face communication, restating the two classic questions of media studies: what do media do to people, and what do people do with media? Media Convergence makes a distinction between three general types of media: the human body enabling communication in the flesh; the technically reproduced means of mass communication; and the digital technologies facilitating interaction one-to-one, one-to-many, as well as many-to-many. Features include: case studies, including mobile phones in everyday life, the Muhammad cartoons controversy and climate change as a global challenge for human communication and political action diagrams, figures, and tables summarizing key concepts beyond standard ‘models of communication’ systematic cross-referencing. Major terms are highlighted and cross-referenced throughout, with key concepts defined in margin notes.

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies No. 67 Television, Japan, and Globalization is a collection of essays that describe vivid and compelling examples of Japanese media and analyze them with sophisticated theoretical methods. The book makes a stunning contribution to the literature of television studies, which has increasingly recognized its problematic focus on U.S. and Western European media, and a compelling intervention in discussions of globalization, through its careful attention to contradictory and complex phenomena on Japanese TV. Case studies include talent and stars, romance, anime, telops, game/talk shows, and live action nostalgia shows. The book also looks at Japanese television from a political and economic perspective, with attention to Sky TV, production trends, and Fuji TV as an architectural presence in Tokyo. The combination of textual analysis, brilliant argument, and historical and economic context makes this book ideal for media studies audiences. Its most important contribution may be the way these essays move the study of Japanese popular culture beyond the tired truisms about postmodernism and open up new lines of thinking about television and popular culture within and between nations.

This book offers fresh critical insights to the field of media convergence with a particular focus on the mainstream media of China. It begins with an exploration of the emerging change among the entire mediascape: the clear and distinct boundaries that used to demarcate media channels are gradually dissolved, and the widespread introduction and application of new communication technologies have brought both challenges and opportunities toward China. This is followed by a series of theoretical endeavor about the link between conventional media and new media. Drawing on President Xi Jinping’s guiding opinions regarding with media convergence, this book then analyzes the political task laid upon mainstream media in which challenges may be turned into opportunities. Given its conceptual focus and practical contribution, the book helps media professionals and related government agencies understand the wide variety of changes brought about by media convergence and the new direction for media development.

This edited volume explores different meanings of media convergence and deconvergence, and reconsiders them in critical and innovative ways. Its parts provide together a broad picture of opposing trends and tensions in media convergence, by underlining the relevance of this powerful idea and emphasizing the misconceptions that it has generated. Sergio Sparviero, Corinna Peil, Gabriele Balbi and the other authors look into practices and realities of users in convergent media environments, ambiguities in the production and distribution of content, changes to the organization of media industries, the re-configuration of media markets, and the influence of policy and regulations. Primarily addressed to scholars and students in different fields of media and communication studies, Media Convergence and Deconvergence deconstructs taken-for-granted concepts and provides alternative and fresh analyses on one of the most popular topics in contemporary media culture. Chapter 1 is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com

This book observes and analyzes transnational interactions of East Asian pop culture and current cultural practices, comparing them to the production and consumption of Western popular culture and providing a theoretical discussion regarding the specific paradigm of East Asian pop culture. Drawing on innovative theoretical perspectives and grounded empirical research, an international team of authors consider the history of transnational flows within pop culture and then systematically address pop culture,digital technologies, and the media industry. Chapters cover the Hallyu—or Korean Wave—phenomenon, as well as Japanese and Chinese cultural industries. Throughout the book, the authors address the convergence of the once-separated practical, industrial, and business aspects of popular culture under the influence of digital culture. They further coherently synthesize a vast collection of research to examine the specific realities and practices of consumers that exist beyond regional boundaries, shared cultural identities, and historical constructs. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, undergraduates, and graduate students of Asian media, media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, transcultural communication, or sociology.