Transnational Media Consumption and Cultural Negotiations: Taiwanese Youth Look at Japanese and South Korean Television Dramas

Hung, Hsiu-Chin. 2013. Transnational Media Consumption and Cultural Negotiations: Taiwanese Youth Look at Japanese and South Korean Television Dramas. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]

[img]
Preview
Text (Transnational Media Consumption and Cultural Negotiations: Taiwanese Youth Look at Japanese and South Korean Television Dramas)
MED_PHDHung_2013.pdf - Accepted Version

Download (2MB) | Preview

Abstract or Description

The viewing of Japanese and South Korean TV dramas in Taiwan represents an opportunity to explore foreign media popularity as a cultural phenomenon. In addition, we can also examine the relationship between youth audiences and their construction of a sense of collective social identity in relation to their cultural ‘others’. This thesis examines how Japanese and South Korean TV dramas are incorporated into the lives and cultural practices of young people in Taiwan by looking at the varying degrees and levels of acceptance they enjoy, as well as the different purposes these dramas are used for. In addition, this thesis investigates the process of modern nation-building and the (re)construction of ‘local’ Taiwanese cultures in the context of transnational cultural flows. It focuses on how Taiwanese youth construct their own interpretations of national identity in the space which lies between the traditional Chinese national/cultural identity imposed in the pre-1987 period, and the new world of free media which heralds different models of identity emerging from the regional flows of cultural goods.

Methods of data collection include: distribution of a questionnaire (278 in total) which was designed to give a general understanding of the consumption of both Japanese and Korean TV dramas. This was then followed by four group discussions with secondary school students and ten one-to-one interviews with university students. In this fashion the research investigates at a concrete level the cultural consumption of Japanese and Korean ‘trendy dramas’ (television dramas) and examines the ways in which young Taiwanese audiences utilise their new transnational cultural resources in order to construct a Taiwanese cultural identity that is orientated towards a specifically East Asian context. Although this work attempts to understand the ideas young Taiwanese have about national and cultural identity within the context of regional popular culture flows – focusing on the reception of Japanese and Korean popular TV dramas during late 1990s and early 2000s – it also demonstrates the way in which local, regional and global cultural flows contribute toward the production of a critical transcultural identity.

Item Type:

Thesis (Doctoral)

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00008853

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Media, Communications and Cultural Studies

Date:

27 March 2013

Item ID:

8853

Date Deposited:

13 Sep 2013 09:26

Last Modified:

08 Sep 2022 11:20

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/8853

View statistics for this item...

Edit Record Edit Record (login required)