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[ecrea] Call for Papers "India, China and the Future of the Media"

Sat Nov 08 20:43:49 GMT 2014





call for papers

“India, China and the future of the media”

Hong Kong Baptist University 12th – 14th March 2015



China and India are the two most populous countries in the world, and both are experiencing fast economic development and rapid social change. Despite different political systems and economic structures, they are both leading forces in the “BRICS” group of nations and they aspire to play a bigger role internationally, in culture as much as in international relations. These developments have led increasing numbers of scholars to begin comparative research on different aspects of the two societies, including their media and communication activities. This colloquium aims to build upon that work by bringing together Indian and Chinese scholars, as well as interested others, to discuss major points of similarity and difference between the two countries.

We have provisionally identified three major themes that we believe are central to this subject and we invite prospective participants to submit English-language abstracts of around 500 words outlining what contribution they envisage making to such a colloquium. Proposals may focus on one country or compare the situation in both. The three themes are:

1. The future of the media: The legacy media of the press and broadcasting in both India and China have developed, at least until very recently, in the opposite direction to those in the developed world. The circulation of newspapers in the developed world has been declining for years and in the last decade advertising revenue has flooded on to the internet, seldom being captured by the online editions of print newspapers. For years in China and India newspaper circulation has been growing rapidly and advertising revenues have remained buoyant. Very recently, in both countries, circulation has faltered and the share of advertising going online has risen rapidly, albeit from a small base. In broadcasting, the number of television channels has increased sharply in both countries, in both cases driven by rising advertising revenues. In the developed world, the revenue balance within broadcasting is shifting from free-to-view to subscription services, with attendant changes in the nature of programming, while online consumption of audio-visual media through sites like YouTube and Hulu is increasing. Subscription has long provided a mechanism for access to broadcast signals in China and India but as yet there are few examples of high-value subscription channels. The differences between the social structures of the advanced world and China and India (urbanisation, the shift from agriculture to industry, the modernization of the service sector, rising educational levels and greater disposable income) as well as the different cultural traditions of the two countries, mean that it is unlikely that the experiences of the developed world will be reproduced in exactly the same way in either country, but it is by no means certain that the existing models of media can continue without modification. We invite papers that examine existing trends in the production, consumption and financing of legacy media and which suggest ways in which they might change in the future.

2. The role of social media: The mass usage of the internet came relatively late to both China and India, but growth has been explosive. Today, China has the largest internet-using population in the world and the number of Indians online, although much smaller, is growing rapidly. In both countries, the huge numbers involved are in large measure a function of the huge populations in these countries and in both the rate of penetration remains relatively low as compared to some countries in the advanced world. For both, the digital divide in its simplest form of access to the technology remains a central reality, but in many other aspects there are major differences. Whereas India has been distinguished for its active participation in the international computer industry, China has been more concerned with the production of nationally-based software. In both countries, however, the social media are important and expanding parts of public communication, providing new mechanisms through which people can talk with each other and find an audience for their creative productions. As everywhere in the world, social media embody the whole gamut of human activity – from fashion and food to romance and politics – but they are embedded in societies with very different cultural traditions and political structures. We invite papers that examine the role of social media in all aspects of social life, including issues of governance, everyday life, and social action.

3. The projection of national soft power: Both India and China have rich and long-established cultures, and both have long records of international cultural influence. For many years, however, the international exchange of culture has been predominantly a one-way process, from the advanced world, and particularly the USA, towards the developing world. Hollywood films and television programmes, the English language, and the education systems of the developed world have been the dominant cultural forces in almost every country in the world. There have always been currents that ran in the opposite direction, but recent developments have led to their substantial strengthening. These developments are usually given the label, borrowed from Joseph Nye, of an increase in the soft power of the two countries. In the case of India, the best-established and most familiar cultural exports have been cinema films, universally known as Bollywood cinema. For many years, their primary audience was amongst the Indian diaspora but increasingly they have won a wider audience in a range of different markets. In the Chinese case, the last few years have seen a very substantial government investment in various attempts to increase the country’s soft power. As well as efforts to export cinema films, new international radio and television news channels have been launched in English and other languages, and a large number of Confucius Institutes, teaching the Chinese language and promoting Chinese culture, have been established around the world. If Western culture still dominates in most fields, today it faces an increasing challenge. We invite papers that look at the success and failures of these efforts at spreading Indian and Chinese cultures internationally and at the future prospects for changing the overall balance in these fields.

We envisage this colloquium to be a small working meeting of around 20 scholars from India and China, all of whom will present a paper. Contacts between individuals working in the two countries have been relatively infrequent and we believe that one of the important outcomes of a meeting like this will be the chance for everyone to become more familiar with their counterparts in the other country. Unlike the bigger international conferences, we expect everyone who attends not only to present their own paper but to attend all of the sessions and join the discussion of the other papers. We hope that the conference will help us all to explore future avenues for research and that at the end of the conference new partnerships and collaborations will be under active discussion.

Hong Kong is an excellent place to begin such an exchange. It prides itself on being “Asia’s world city” and it is a lively and cosmopolitan environment with a vigorous civic life. The city is part of China and shares its majority language and culture with the mainland while enjoying a special constitutional arrangement which means that there is much less direct political intervention into either the media or universities. At the same time, it shares with India many echoes of its British colonial past. For example, English is the main language of instruction in Hong Kong universities. It has a substantial and long-established Indian community who play an important role in many aspects of the city’s life.

If you are interested in an invitation to this event, please send your abstract by email to either Ms Swati Maheshwari ((swati.maheswari /at/ gmail.com)) or Ms Lo Wai Han ((janetlo85 /at/ gmail.com)) by 7th December 2014. Successful proposers will be notified within one week and full papers will be required by 19th January 2015





Colin Sparks

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Anatole France



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