The Unfolding Lotus: East Asia's Changing Media [antikvár]

reface This volume, titled The Unfolding Lotus: East Asia's Changing Media, represents an effort to better understand the dynamic media scene in a region of die world that has recently witnessed profound and powerful economic and social development. It is the dynamism of the nations of East Asia, large and small, diat first comes to mind when the term globaiism or economic interdependence is used. The mere mention of this region and its many distinctive nations conjures up images of diverse cultures, massive populations and powerhouse economies. However, the media of East Asia are not often so visible. That is ironic because it was in these ancient societies that paper was invented and the first newspaper appeared hundreds of years ago. That legacy, mostly lost in the dust of history, has little to do with the region's modern media, which are more recent in origin and linked to Western colonialism. And while the emerging media of East Asia, like their counterparts elsewhere, deliver information, convey opinion, offer entertainment and a marketplace for goods and services, they stand against a very different philosophical backdrop. If Western media are products of the European Enlightenment, with its dedication to individual freedom and rights, the media of much of East Asia by contrast stand in harmony with Confucian philosophy, which stresses consensus and cooperation. Thus, what may look the same is actually quite different in function, if not in form. Any attempt to assess the media in Asia crisscrosses various cultures, traditions and languages that are marked more by differences than similarities. With all of its diversity, a visitor to the region has to ask whether there really is an "Asia" after all. Still, in a world that needs to organize itself regionally to facilitate understanding, there is an Asia, and we set out to study the nature, scope and impact of the media on many of its societies. To get as accurate a picture of East Asian media as possible, we travelled to the region several times, conducting more than 350 interviews, visiting scores of media institutions and talking with diplomats, foreign correspondents, scholars and media professionals in the field to help us examine and map out its media scene. Since we could not go everywhere and see everything, we narrowed the scope of our inquiry, selecting 10 venues for detailed analysis—South Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. We tried as best we could to understand each country's nuances, distinctive attributes and problems. We considered media-government relations, the structure and organization of the media, the quality of journalism and education and training, among other subjects. This exercise was carried out as a briefing paper for die trustees of our parent foundation, The Freedom Forum, who conducted a fact-finding tour of the region in 1992. The Freedom Forum subsequently announced the creation of an Asian program to foster professional development, training and education that will include the murtial exchange of journalists and scholars. While this region did not experience the radical change and massive transformation that has affected East Central Europe or the former Soviet Union, it nonetheless has moved in incremental fashion toward democratization and a market economy, with some notable exceptions. There clearly has also been a relaxing of restrictions, allowing for freer media and greater access to information. Not only did we gather information ourselves, we also invited leading journalists and media experts in the countries to give their perspective on their media. Those expert commentaries, feaaired in each of die chapters that follow, supplement die narrative and offer firsthand witness from those who work in the media there. If die main text here tries for an overview that includes key details, the journalists' commentaries focus more closely on what it is like to be a journalist in these countries. iii