This document discusses issues in global media studies and the rise of Asian media capitals. It questions assumptions about the dominance of Hollywood and argues global media markets are becoming more diverse and decentralized. The document introduces concepts from cultural economic geography, including how culture drives competitive advantage, and how certain regions develop innovative clusters through path-dependent interactions. It examines two trajectories of economic globalization - deterritorialized commodity production versus territorialized production relying on location-specific resources. The rise of Chinese media industries is discussed as a potential new media capital, though regionalization rather than globalization may be occurring, and East Asian media policies lack coherence.

1. Cultural Economic Geographyand Global Media Studies: The Rise of Asian Media Capitals?Professor Terry Flew, ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and InnovationQueensland University of Technology,Brisbane, Australia ACS Crossroads 2010 Lingnan University, Hong Kong June 17-21 2010

2. Issues for Global Media Studies 2 Is the influence of “Global Hollywood” increasing or decreasing in the early 21st century? Are the number of internationally significant “media capitals” increasing or decreasing? What makes for a sustainable media capital? Is the literature on “creative clusters” a help of hindrance in understanding the dynamics of media capitals? Is there a tendency towards policy convergence between national media systems (e.g. the neoliberal globalization thesis)?

3. Global Media Studies: The Uneasy Stand-off Between Political Economy and Cultural Studies 1990s: cultural studies tended to critique political economy esp. around active audience theories No singular cultural studies approach to global media – “bower-bird” approach to the field 2000s: cultural studies has tended to accept political economy approach to production/economy Stand-off has been arising from focus on production or consumption

4. Questioning the Political Economy of Global Media DOMINANT CLAIMS COUNTER-CLAIMS Hegemony of “Global Hollywood” has strengthened and extended to digital media domains IP provides the new basis of dominance and dependency relations Media policy convergence has been occurring under the sign of neo-liberal globalization Global media markets have become more competitive and national systems have been strengthening International media and cultural landscape is becoming more diverse and decentralised National media policy and regulatory frameworks remain highly diverse

5. Cultural Economic Geography “Cultural turn” in economic geography Following the Marxist turn on economic geography (70s-80s) Regulation School and new institutionalism Consumption as a socio-economic driver Discursive construction of economic categories 5

6. Rise of Cultural Economy Incursion of sign-value into ever-widening spheres of productive activity Culturalisation of economic life Management of culture and organisational performance Growing reflexivity of consumption Economy of qualities/relations (Callon)

7. Cultural Construction of Economic Categories Culture as variable source of competitive advantage in context of globalisation (Yúdice) Three “big ideas” of cultural economic geography (MericGertler) Flexible global production networks - changing significance of geographical proximity Shift in innovation models from ideas-push to geographical clusters and sustained interaction – why do some regions develop path-dependent untraded interdependencies? Cumulative advantage of path-dependent innovation and increasing returns to scale 7

8. Actor-Network Theories and New Modes of Governance Rise of network relations and network governance Internet promotes complex topologies rather than core-periphery models Network governance challenges state/market and public/private divides Rise of soft capitalism (Thrift) Travelling theories (Pratt, Gibson & Kong, Gibson)

9. Rise of creative industries 9 Rise of the CI sectors: 7-9% of US GDP, and 3-6% for other OECD economies (Australia 5% in 2006) Shifting of lines between ‘symbolic’ and ‘material’ goods Design-intensity of products Sign-value and competitive advantage “Engel’s Law”: consumer affluence and symbolic consumption Agglomeration tendencies in CIs: Just-in-time specialist labour Dense networks of SMEs Project-based work Synergistic benefits of concentration Associated soft infrastructure

10. Two Trajectories of Economic Globalization Deterritorialized economic production Generic, cost-driven production models “race to the bottom” Standardised commodities Territorialized economic production Location-specific resources (esp. skills and tacit knowledge) Clustering and path-dependent innovation De-standardised commodities and importance of untraded interdependencies in particular locations

11. Problems Problem with neo-Marxist dependency models (e.g. NICL) is that they only see the former occurring Problem with amenities-based growth models (e.g. creative clusters, creative cities) is that they believe everyone can achieve the latter Ignored tendency of capitalism towards both dualistic and uneven development

13. Is this developing an independent dynamism in a fast-growing market?

15. The rise of Asian media capitals? Are Chinese media industries really on a “Hollywood” trajectory? Regionalization rather than globalization – inclusions (Singapore?) and exclusions (Japan, Korea?) Issue of lack of policy coherence in media policies across East Asia 14