In this introduction to this special issue on creative labour in East Asia, we explore how the creative industries discourse, and related debates around creative labour, continue to be haunted by a Eurocentric cum Anglocentric bias. The critical language of this discourse often directs all discussion of “inequality”, “precarity” and “self-exploitation” of creative labour towards a critique of “neoliberalism”

The worldwide popularity of South Korean popular music has generated global consumer demand for variations of its grueling training regimen offered by talent recruitment agencies and dance studios. Using the case study of the South Korean popular music boot camps offered by the Australia-based agency, The Academy, this article seeks to frame these performative engagements along more cosmopolitan notions

This article addresses the centrality of images in the definition of a new paradigm for ageing, when health (measured by autonomy) becomes a condition for freedom (associated with youth). Based on a 16-month ethnography conducted with older people (aged 50–80) in a middle-class district in São Paulo, Brazil, I found that smartphones empower older people to craft a health identity by engaging and producing

This article is part of the special issue Creative Labor in East Asia. By exploring specific political, economic, and institutional conditions promoting actually existing precarity in Korean digita...

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436419883735 Global Media and

This article situates Bruce Lee’s films and star persona in the context of wider patterns in global genre cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. I argue for a connection between the Western reception of Lee’s films and those of the mid-century Italian sword and sandal films, beginning with the Colosseum fight between Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris that concludes Way of the Dragon (1972). From the dojo fights of

This article situates Bruce Lee at the heart of the emergence of ‘martial arts’. It argues that the notion ‘martial arts’, as we now know it, is a discursive entity that emerged in the wake of media texts, and that the influence of Bruce Lee films of the early 1970s was both seminal and structuring of ‘martial arts’, in ways that continue to be felt. Using the media theory proposition that a limited

This article endeavors to understand the work of Bruce Lee, particularly his appearance on the US television series Longstreet (1971–1972), with reference to the philosophical concept of perfectionism. Although in extant scholarship Lee has often been presented as an anti-Confucian figure, this article reexamines Lee’s Confucian connections vis-à-vis perfectionism. By virtue of an investigation into

This article assesses changing debates about globalisation in light of the growth of digital media. It stresses how popular music is shaped by enduring tensions between nation-state attempts to control territorial borders, the power of transnational corporations aiming to operate across these borders and emergent cosmopolitan practices that offer a cultural challenge to these borders. It outlines how

The objective of this research is to identify the factors that determine the capacity of city rankings published in the economic press—particularly The Economist Intelligence Unit and AméricaEconomía—to not only trigger social dialogue about the ratings different territories attain but also to enrich the public debate on the “competitive city model” and influence the design and implementation of local

In the aftermath of the South Asian tsunami of 26 December 2004, the term ‘citizen journalism’ swiftly gained currency with global news organisations finding themselves in the difficult position of being largely dependent on ‘amateur’ photographs, video footage and eyewitness accounts to tell the story of what was transpiring on the ground in the most severely affected areas. Despite its ambiguities

This article offers a critical analysis of Matthew Baren’s 2018 film Extravaganza, a documentary about drag scenes in Shanghai. By focusing on some drag performers represented in this film, in tandem with an examination of the social and industry contexts of the film, as well as my interviews with the filmmaker and performers, I problematise the gender identity of the performers and the national identity

Operating as a commercial business with public functions, Weibo’s pursuit of profits has to be balanced with the demands of citizen users. This article examines how the dynamics between increasing profits and preserving public interest manifests itself in Weibo’s monetization and how the dynamics impacts Weibo’s public functions. Drawn on evidence collected through participant observation and 19 in-depth

In Brazil, the traditional media crisis coincides with the historical moment of weakening political liberalism and the transit of the rational idea of the people in favor of a still obscure mass of population, redefined and fixed by the expanded market. There is a general perception that the forms of representation or framing of the social–political field, dating to the 18th and 19th centuries, cease

This cross-nation, multi-event study examined 142 news stories from CCTV and CNN on two major terrorist attacks in China and the United States. It aimed to unveil how press system and national interest come into play in influencing media coverage of terrorism. Framing analyses were conducted in terms of attitude toward local government and perpetrators, news origin and source, coverage theme, definition

Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). https://doi.org/10.1177/2059436417725206 Global Media and

Recent years have seen the rise of the ‘processual approach’ in media ritual studies, which focuses on the making of media rituals through various ‘ritualised actions’ rather than assuming them as isolated events distinctive to ordinary broadcasting. This article advances this line of argument by shedding light on a previously less-discussed form of ritualised action: the ritualised casting. It examines