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

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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