Review on G1 RWAV live show

May 20, 2013 in Radio 1

Presenting Skill

I thought Milly and Simon were a good match – their teamwork was good, the way that Milly handed over introduction and questioned what’s coming up today? to Simon was a good way to introduce her co-presenter. Simon sounded slightly nervous in the beginning – I could feel that he was reading the sentences out of the script but Milly’s energetic and upbeating presenting led him feel more relaxed and natural. I especially liked her joke about cheese in the introduction part, it was a great way to catch the audiences’ attention and also to merge her personality into the show.

At 21.30, there was a blank – awkward dead silence for about 2 seconds, where one of presenters forgot to introduce next music track after Simon finishing talking about the book review.

In Live Studio Interview with Nazar Yousif, Milly needs to be careful with using the superlative words like “fantastic, absolutely..etc” – it might distract the audiences’ personal ‘thinking moments’.

In the end (wrap-up), good giving the credits to all crew and previous interviewees. It was also great to mention next Triple R show – ‘Zero G’ that’s coming up after RWAV.

If I was to give one suggestion, it would been good if they mentioned about Twitter as well throughout the show.

Overall, Simon and Milly presenting flew well, interview skills and the way that they were able to fit with time pressure was good. I could feel that they were well prepared and practiced – there were small mistakes throughout the show, but I believe their first show was successful and professional.

Structure

It was good to hear Milly back announcing music tracks quickly and introducing to another content, their links were tight and focused.

On the half way, It was good to hear Milly listing out previous contents and music tracks, updating the audiences how the show is running. It was also  interesting to listen their reviews on the film/book that relates with “Genetic Modification” topic that they’ve been interviewing about in previous content. It was a clever way to bring turning point and move onto another content.

Good long music break after the interview with Professor Nick J Hoogenraad, it gave nice ‘thinking moment’ for Triple R audiences about its heavy and deep interview topic.

Diverse content & well structured – kept audiences entertaining to continue listening to the show.

Content/ Interview

Good Interview with Professor Nick J Hoogenraad – good interviewee – great investigation on the insight into Genetic Modification. It was very educational and deeply researched topic. Good introduction by Simon before interview – clearly introducing interviewee (as an expert) and stating the issues that follows with Genetic Modification and why they need to talk/ explore about this topic (significance) for Triple R audience was great way to start to keep the audiences in track.

Appropriate, well researched and open interview questions by Simon – asked questions to bring more details/contents into the interview. However, I felt that it could’ve been shorter – felt bit long – lost my engagement with it on the half way. Professor was talking too much – Simon should be more concise and be able to handle the length.

In addition, I don’t know if professor’s voice naturally sounds like it, but he sounded bit tired and broken, it would been good if he took a glass of water.
It sometimes came to me slightly distracting to listen to him.

In regards to its editing, I’m not sure if it was the cuts or accidents in post production, I noticed that there were some dead silence gaps between the interview.

Lastly, it would been good to hear some kind of ending to its interview – such as thanking professor. I personally thought that no ending and throwing straight to studio was little awkward, but it’s been well covered by Simon with its back announcement from studio. Overall, I think it was a good interview:)

Furthermore, both Interview with Councillor Arron Wood (Melbourne’s sustainable business expert) and Interview with music artist, Nazar Yousif worked very well, especially with Triple R community radio content. The topic about cycling and traffic in Melbourne CBD and Melbourne based upcoming Emerge Festival was something that most of Triple R audiences would care about and listen to. Here, I could see that they’ve carefully thought about their target audiences, Triple R audience’s characteristic – their background, common interest and culture. These interviews were interesting and engaging.

In general, there was a good range of contents from science, weather and music… I enjoyed listening to them:)

Panelling/ Transition: I felt that Sofie has done a good job with panelling throughout the show. Good Transition from one track to another – adding a short sting in-between. The transition from studio to music track was also smooth. Particularly at the start, I liked how Sophie steadily faded up while Simon was still introducing the track. Overall levels were even. Well done Sofie! However, just one thing, there were some parts(particularly before last music track) that I could hear awkward silences – it would been good if she cued slightly early.

Music: A good fit for Triple R! Good choice of the songs to play back  to back (Bonobo”Venus As A Boy” by  Bjork and “Forgotten Notes” by Hackman)
- good match, similar tones, rhythm and pace – created a nice long continuous music break.

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What are the successful elements to Korean Wave?

May 16, 2013 in Media Industry 1

The Korean Wave, or Hallyu, began washing up on the shores of Asian countries in the late 1990s. Coined by Chinese journalists, Hallyu refers to the spread of South Korean popular culture through not only China but much of Asia. In general, Hallyu encompasses Korean cinema, television drama, fashion, magazines, pop music and lately the performing arts.

K-drama goes global

In 1996 Korean broadcasting organizations exported 6 million dollars of media. At the same time they imported 63.9 million dollars of foreign Television programs. In table below, we can see that three years later the export has already doubled to 12.7 million.  It has been growing ever since. In 2010 television exports were 187 million dollars. During this period we can see that the import of foreign television programs had been declining. 2002 was the first year that imports were lower than the exports by Korean broadcasting organizations. The export accounted for 28.8 million dollars and the import was 25.1 million dollars. The year 2009 however saw a dramatic rise of in television imports. In 2010 the rise had stopped and went down to 10.4 million dollars. We can conclude that television has been doing really well in Korea. The export of television shows increased 30% in the period between 2006 and 2010.

Table1: Annual export and import of Korean TV programs in million US dollars. Adapted from “The Korean wave (hallyu) in East Asia. A comparison of Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese audiences who watch Korean TV dramas,” by J. Yang, 2012, Development and Society, 41, p. 124. Copyright 2012 by the Institute for Social Development and Policy Research.

The success of Hallyu

Government Policy – SOFT POWER/ NATIONAL BRANDING

  • Mid 1990’s – a realisation of need for an economic by shifting from manufacturing to cultural industry exports

  • Provision of financial incentives by government.

  • Chaebols (e.g, Samsung, Daewoo, Hyundai) – played a fundamental initial role in establishing infrastructure to these industries.

  • Rise of many Asian economies & consumption; also liberalisation in terms of import of media content … but argued to be an unintended success.

  • Waning popularity and relative cost of Japanese television in Asian countries left a market opening for Korean products.

- Shim (2008)

Government policy is one of the most important factors to the success of the Korean Wave. For the government hallyu is a tool to generate more money. They want to use hallyu to benefit the Korean economy. Their point of view is very similar to that of commercial businesses.

Table 2: Stages of hallyu. Adapted from “The Role of the government in cultural industry. Some observations from Korea’s experience,” by M. Kim, 2011, Keio Communication Review,  33, p. 167. Copyright 2011 by Keio University.

This model was designed by the Samsung research institute and it gives a good overview of what the Government think hallyu is.

Stage 3 and 4 are very relevant for the Korean government. The Korean wave can be seen as one of the reasons for the improved relationships with Vietnam and Taiwan and developing the nation’s “Soft Power”. Korean movie stars, Jang Dong Gun and Kim Nam Joo, are big stars in Vietnam. President Kim Dae Jung invited the two for dinner with the Vietnamese president Tran Duc Luong in 2001. (Shim, 2006).

In the article from Sung (2010) it explains how hallyu has changed the image of South Korea in Taiwan. For a long time the Taiwanese preferred music from Hong Kong and Japanese dramas. South Korea had a negative image in Taiwan. This was mainly due to the fact that South Korea established a new diplomatic relationship with China and cut off the relationship with Taiwan. Since 2000 this had been changing. Korean music and drama became the number one choice in Taiwan. As a result the people of Taiwan began to have a more positive image of South Korea. (Sung, 2010)

Soap Drama – Winter Sonata

“Winter Sonata” (2002, KBS) became extremely popular in Japan, which brought in more than 27 billion dollars including tourism profits.

The success of ‘Winter Sonata’ is easy to explain. The characteristics of the main character, he is sensitive, sweet and gentle, are traits that Japanese women cannot find in Japanese men. The guys over there hate that drama. They say that it is a fairytale. No man is like that.

Many observers attribute the growing number of fans around the world to the emotional power of Korean dramas. The K-dramas offer interwoven themes of family, romance, friendship, martial arts, war, and business, and they are seen as being able to deal with love relationships in a way that is more tender, meaningful, and emotional than sensual. The level of emotional investment and sentimentality in human relations and social realities constitutes a major source of popular pleasure that continues to draw women to Korean dramas. What also makes those dramas appealing is their dramatization of “Asian sensibilities,” including family values and traditional emotive subtleties that are warmly embraced by cross-generational viewers in Asian countries.

Korean dramas are for many women a way to get an indirect experience of (fantasy) love according to another Korean respondent. Many dramas show the love between a rich man and a poor girl. Girls in Korea dream about this happening to them. The absence of explicit sex scenes in Korean dramas makes those dramas more appealing to those girls. Love in a Korean drama is centered on eye contact or a little touch.

Kim (2009) finds that “emotional involvement variable in the narrative was the strongest one affecting audience members’ purchasing behavior” (Kim, 2009, pg.605)

REFERENCES

  • Kim, DK. 2009 ‘Television drama, narrative engagement and audience buying behavior: The effects of Winter Sonata in Japan’. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 71 no. 7, pp. 595-611

  • Kim, M. (2011). The Role of the government in cultural industry. Some observations from Korea’s experience. Keio Communication Review, 33, pp. 163-182

  • Shim, D. (2006). Hybridity and the rise of Korean popular culture in Asia. Media, Culture & Society, 28: 1, pp. 25-44

  • Sung, SY. 2010 ‘Constructing new image. Hallyu in Taiwan’. European Journal of East Asian Studies, vol.9 no.1, pp. 25-45.

  • Yang, J. 2012 ‘The Korean wave (hallyu) in East Asia: A comparison of Chinese, Japanese and

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WEBSITE DESIGN & SCHEDULE

May 16, 2013 in Media Industry 1

This drawing is roughly shows how our website is going to be constructed.

For our main page, we are planning to create four creative videos – showing four different countries’ (Korea, Japan, China and Hong Kong) typical tv-program mash-ups, introducing to each case studies. In this way, it would be more entertaining and attractive for the audiences to catch their attention to deeper research of it.

Also, we thought it would be important to state the introduction to whole research – why is it significant for the audience to know about transnational television research whithin East Asian countries, what are we covering in this website?..etc

Then, we will divide our information into 5 different sub-topics,

1> Overview of research

2> What is Transnational TV? - Meaning to Each Country (map of academic terms – describe what it is)

3>Case Studies: Here, we take deeper researches on the influences of transnational television in each East Asian countries, looking at specific areas (such as successful elements, issues/challenges..etc) and its particular TV-programs that associates within the case study topic. We will ask ourselves different research questions…
3.1>>Korea
500 word Question: What are the successful elements to the korean wave?

3.2>>Japan
500 word Question: What are the successful elements of transnational Japanese television?
What happens to it transnationally and its distribution? (Hana yori dango)
3.3>>China
500 word Question: How has foreign transnational media been received in China? Has it challenged traditional values?
3.4>> HK
500 word Question: How has Star TV and TVB satellite television changed the transnational media landscape for the citizens of HK? HK as an active global importer and exporter (internal genre) in television programs around the east Asia .

4> Conclusion: Similarities/DIfferences – compare and contrast between four East Asian countries from case study and discover final definition of transnational television in Asia – what does it really man?

5> About Us: details of researchers – contact details.

As we now have only 3weeks left until the final research presentation, we’ve decided to set the schedule to work more efficiently during this restricted time frame.

WEEK 10

  • 500 Word Draft by 8pm Wednesday

WEEK 11

  • Start writing Final Essay(Case Study)
  • Write Introduction Body
  • Write ‘Transnational TV?’

WEEK 12

  • Finish Final Essay(Case Study)
  • Create Videos
  • Write Similarities/Differences
  • done website

WEEK 13

  • Touch up…and write script for presentation
  • Present!!!!!!!

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DEMO REVIEW

May 8, 2013 in Radio 1

RWAV intro - I think “Faulty Tower” gives really good start, creating light and humorous tone to our show even though it’s bit longer than the other choices (1.09).  However, its volume at the beginning needs to be raised a bit as it comes to be very contrasting with Tom’s voice saying “Welcome guys…”

Presentation - I think Tom and Jess work really well together, they gave good introduction to our show – stating what’s coming up (contents) – but I would like them to be more chatty, casual and full of excitement…etc. Jess sounded slightly nervous and solid – she needs to relax a bit. The way that she referred to the website sounded little awkward – she could’ve said trip R instead rrr.

They also need to free themselves from directly reading out from the script. Next time, they should find themselves talking to each other about random and causal topics like they are best friends, not reading from paper to microphone. They need to familiarize themselves within the studio environment and open themselves to wider range of possibilities.

They also need to remember that they do not use the words such as “guys” – they should be talking like they are speaking to one audience and make the show more personal.

Music – At this stage, I’m not too sure about decisions of music tracks that we have chosen for demo recording except “Dreamer” by supertramp – first track.  The music tracks such as “Microphone Fiend” by Rage Against the Machine, it was very loud and typical rock song music, which does not really fit with Triple R’s taste. We should aim for more classic, calm and quiet but also up-beating tracks.

It would also be more interesting if we could possibly find the songs, which refer back the contents and therefore provide deeper meaning and thoughts to the audiences via music performance, rather than selecting random ones that distract their engagement with the show/interview and documentary.

Here are some possible tracks for live show

Interview with Luke Ryan – Sunday Assembly

This content is very interesting and informative to listen to, and it is well edited together by Tom Pike.

However, there was few seconds of dead silence at the start. Tash will need to cue this earlier before Tom finishes his sentence so it sounds more smooth and ‘live’.

Vox Pop (Cheap eats in Melbourne) -  I think it was creative and interesting approach to the show, stepping outside of the studio and talking to the audiences directly.

However, when Jess and Tom were introducing to this segment, they could’ve been more casual – asking each other about their favorite places in Melbourne and adding a bit of laughs, instead of going straight into the piece.

Ghost story documentary – This documentary was interesting too – great choice of music and good interviews about their personal experiences (particularly spooky piano story hooked me in!)

I also like the way that Tom has introduced documentary – “Hauntingly delicious”  – he has to use these kinds of humors often, making audiences to laugh and smile and be more engaged into his speech.

It was good to have a brief conversation between Tom and Jess about the documentary, exploring more about behind story of its production (as Jess has created the piece) and their personal thoughts/beliefs in spirits..etc – it was nice mixture of their personalities.

I felt this chat was slightly long, which we might have to shorten in the live show.

Interview with Eva Sless – Eva was really good speaker about this topic as an expert, She was very passionate about her arguments, and also convincing by backing up with her personal experiences in the past.

However, she was talking too much. In live show, we should ensure that she doesn’t go out of topic and make the conversation simple and concise – straight to the point.

Research segment (ACMI Hollywoo costume) – I like this idea of visiting current event in Melbourne and share the experience with audiences. Zoe was slightly nervous in the beginning of segment but Tom and Jess worked really well, comforting and supporting her – smoothly led her to continue the conversation.

I especially liked Jess’s question – Did you end up deciding a costume that you would run away with? – it’s funny and interesting – they should ask more questions like this.

In terms of paneling –  Zoe’s voice level needs to be higher as it sounds too low comparing to Tom and Jess’s voice.

Moreover, It will be good to have Zoe to talk about her experience at the event in more excited voice – highlighting how fun it was.

Overall, our demo recording worked pretty well. Just few bits and pieces to be fixed.

As it was our first show, everyone were still getting used to the environment, however, if we practice more in paneling, time managing and radio presenting – I believe we should do fine for live show.

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Interview and Vox-pops

May 4, 2013 in Radio 1

Segments for RWAV show

IV with Eva sless : we decided to use my interview with Eva Sless for demo recording and possibly for live show as well as it perfectly fits with Triple R taste, where they explore a lot about human rights and current highly debated topics. We thought Eva Sless’s arguments about her rights as a sex worker/sex journalist, positive sides of sex industry and about media’s biased view towards prostitutes, would be really good content for our 8 mins interview for the show.

However, in pre-recorded interview with Eva, I tried to cover everything and it ended up being 40mins+ interview. I had to cut down enormous amount of it and realised that there was so many unnecessary talks throughout the interview. If we want to use her for our live show interview, we will need to be simple and concise, focusing on main highlights that we want to point out from this issue.

Click HERE to listen to IV with Eva Sless

Additionally, for more entertainment during the show, I thought it would be interesting to add a quick vox-pops with the public asking question about their favourite cheap places to go for food in Melbourne.  As most of Triple R show is based on Melbournian contents, we thought this would be suitable too. And yet, we thought that the way we step out from restricted environment and engage with wider range of publics would create more interesting and dynamic perspective of the show.

Click HERE to listen to the vox-pops

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Presentation and Interview

May 4, 2013 in Media Industry 1

Our group finally organised to put together the information that we have been researching until now. This presentation shows overall look of our study – progress, the importance of research, main question, key theoretical terms, case studies, design of our website..etc

From now on, as we mentioned in our “To do list”, we will need to start filling in these research information into our Weebly website

For deeper research, we also like to conduct the interview with the experts in this area – transnational cultural flows in East Asia.

Possible Interviewees…

I thought Dr Fran Martin at The University Of Melbourne who is a lecturer of cultural studies would be a good start to discuss about our research and share her expert knowledge on television, film, literature and other forms of cultural production in contemporary transnational China (The People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong), with a specialization in transnational flows and representations and cultures of gender and sexuality.

Her recent project : ‘The role of lifestyle television in transforming culture, citizenship and selfhood: Australia, China, Taiwan, Singapore and India‘.

Also, there was a seminar called “Not Just K-Pop“ on April, 26th at North Melbourne Town Hall, hosted by the NYID (Not Yet It’s Difficult) company. This seminar covered  an insight into one of the most dynamic and sustained cultural explosions in Korea, Hallyu, and asked some pertinent questions. Why and how did it happen? How have the dynamics of popular culture shifted in the region? How have these dynamics been mediated by social media and youth culture?  how is Korean contemporary culture going global affecting their local and international arts scene?..etc

They had diverse speakers/experts in this area, which includes…

Sang Won Seo,
Senior Artist, Wuturi

Stellar Kim
Producer, SBS Radio,
Chief Editor, Melbourne Journal

Dr Sun Jung
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore

David Pledger
Artistic Director, NYID

However, I missed the opportunity to attend this seminar and hear all these useful information from them, so I’m planning to chase them one by one for an interview.

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Structuring Research format

April 26, 2013 in Media Industry 1

For our research, we’ve been discussing about how we should structure the whole  research format and specify our main focus/theme of the study – E.g. What do we want to tell the audiences? Why they should care?
The meeting with Brian last tuesday (18th), has given us really good ideas/feedbacks on how we should develop the research further. After the meeting, we looked at each member’s annotated bibliography on different nations(Korea, Japan, China and HK/Taiwan) and found some similarities and differences.
We decided that our research should aim for investigating deeply on the definition of “Transitional Television” and how it circulates and influences around Asia.
As Brian has mentioned, the study on “Transnational Television Future Trend” could eventually be too much for this small research project. At this stage, we are restricted in many ways (time, subject, budget..etc). In this limited condition, we thought that we might not be able to afford ourselves to supply diverse/credible evidences for the research and end up giving general and unrealistic information to the audiences. So, we thought it will be more important to focus and professionalise on one specific topic, instead of touching on basic knowledges.
Here are main research questions that we want to ask ourselves and cover throughout the project..
  • What does Transnational Television mean to each East Asian countries (Korea, Japan, China, HK, Taiwan)?
  • Who cares? Why?
  • Case studies on Television from each countries?
  • What are differences/similarities?
In order to successfully compare and contrast the meaning/impact of Transnational Television between four East Asian countries, we thought it would be a good idea to divide and create  sub-topics/connection to our individual case studies. This way, it makes easier for us to compact our information and also to make them relevant to each other.
  • History of Television in the country and the beginning of their transnational Television.
  • National Identity
  • Globalisation and audience
  • The successful elements (Internet, government etc)
  • Issues/ Challenges
The reason that the audiences would care about our study is because…
As these countries are developing stronger productions and the government is investing more money into making them transnational creations; it is only a matter of time until Asian Media will be just as accessible globally as Media from the West (America). This trend is already visible and continues to grow.
Our research has been progressing consistently and effectively. Each group members now have good knowledge and understandings around ‘transnational television’, specifically in four different nations according to individual’s deep investigations on expert’s papers.
However, we will need to collate the researches further and investigate similarities/differences within four countries in depth. We’d like to construct the website, using “weebly” software and put these ideas altogether very soon. In future, we also might like to approach the research in more dynamic and creative aspect, such as conducting actual interview with professionals in TV industry or vox-popping with the public.

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‘RWAV’ running sheet

April 24, 2013 in Radio 1

Our RWAV group #6 completed first draft of running sheet for demo/LIVE show – could be changed according to exact time of Music track and segments, however, we are mostly confirmed with the ideas that we want to go for an hour show.

Contents include…

5 Song tracks (TBC by Tom)

2 interviews (pre-recorded and live in studio)

2 segments (vox pop/research)

1 documentary about ghost story

Possibilities for short pre-recorded segments

  • Film review on human rights issues
  • Vox pops with the public
  • Ghost tour of Asylum – true story of doctors…etc
  • The event visit

Possibilities for Doco

  • Ghost story (8mins)
  • Divorces and the influence on youth

Each Members Role for Demo/LIVE show

On-show

  • Presenters – Jess, Tom

Off-show

  • Segment Producer (Jenny): Organise running sheet, IV, pre-recorded segment..etc
  • Online Producer (Zoe): Upload Demo on ROAR – images of interviewees , details of the show – contents..etc. (Twitter feed)
  • Panel Operator  – Tash

Update on Panel Training/ Production Schedule

  • 19th of April Friday 10AM-12PM – Jenny (pre-record IV with Eva Sless)
  • 23rd of April Tuesday 2PM-4PM – Tom, Jess and Jenny
  • 30th April Tuesday 1PM-3PM - Panel Training with all group members
  • 30th April Tuesday 3PM-4PM - 2nd Panel Training session with Archie
  •  7th May Tuesday - Demo recording
  • 20th~27th May Monday - LIVE ‘RWAV’ radio show

Each Member’s IV topic

  • Jenny: IV with Eva Sless (sex journalist) -personal experience as a sex worker in the past, media misportrayal, discrimination and positive side of sex industry..etc
  • Tom:  IV with a local comedian – Luke Ryan
  • Jess: IV with a birth photographer
  • Zoe: TBC
  • Tash: IV with Independent Game developers and market change in Melbourne.

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Annotated Bibliography: Transnational Television and Korean Wave

April 18, 2013 in Media Industry 1

Our group decided to choose 4 different East Asian countries for each members and investigate the various issues and practices associated with their Transnational Television. Michael Sarlo – Japan, Danni He – China, Vickie Deng – Taiwan or Hong Kong and Me – Korea. As I took deeper research on the relationship between Korea and Transnational Television, I eventually ended up focusing on the theme derived from “Korean Wave” and “Globalisation”.

Globalisation and Transnational Television

Chalaby, J. (ed.) 2005 “Towards an Understanding of Media Transnationalism” in Transnational Television Worldwide, London I.B. Tauris, pp. 1-13

This article offers a global perspective on the unique contemporary media phenomenon of transnational television channels. Chalaby (2005) explores about the factor that television is a major presence in most national cultures and states that, “the rise of transnational television lies at the heart of the current regional and global reshaping of media industries and cultures”. (ed Chalaby, 2005, p.1)

The report also demonstrates how transnational television takes different forms, providing examples such as cross-border satellite TV channels (e.g. south TV in South Asia), International and regional news channels (e.g. Chanel News Asia, CNN), Joint ventures (e.g. Murdoch’s Star Group) and International format trade.

The report is highly readable and there is a logical progression in explaining general overview of the globalization of TV as Chalaby (2005) effectively supports many of his argument by referring to various media experts’ theory and practices on transnational television topic.

The article is useful for my research to understand the relationship between transnational television networks and the process of globalization and to acknowledge its practical implication on current media industries and cultures. This potentially provides new ways of thinking about emerging transnational media order, considering audiences and geocultural TV markets.

Geography and Audience

Chua, BH. (2004) “Conceptualizing an East Asian popular culture” Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Chapter 5.2, pp. 200-221.

This article explores about the themes deriving from East Asian popular culture. Analyzing the production, distribution and consumption of culture Asian goods, patterns arise that explain the efficiency of exporting Asian cultural material and the reasons for international popularity.

The report categorises three different types of consumption positions, audiences, in consuming popular culture programs and argues that “Consumers are geographically located within cultural spaces in which they are embedded and meanings and viewing pleasures are generated within the local cultures of a specific audience”. (Chua, 2004, p.211), explaining the significant relationship between the consumer’s geographical space and globalization of new media.

The article is well structured and it critically reviews on successful cases/programs from Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea and Singapore, to logically uncover the process of popular cultural products ‘criss-cross’ cutlrual boarders everyday in East Asia. However, there is still lacking research on the economies of these transnational product chains and product flows in each specific location.

The article is useful for my research to see the possibility and realization of a transnational East Asian Identity, facilitated by the production and consumption of a popular culture.

Successful elements of Asian Transnational Media (Korean Wave)

Consumerism and Fandoms – Marketing

Otmazgin, NK. (2011) “Commodifying Asian-ness: entrepreneurship and the making of  East Asian popular culture”. Media, Culture & Society, vol. 33 no.2, pp. 259-74.

This article explores the linkage between entrepreneurship and the making of popular culture in East Asia. Otmazgin(2011) particularly emphasizes the argument that the notion of entrepreneurship is central for building new circles of ‘Asian’ recognition and for understanding and conceptualizing the process of constructing trans-national markets for popular culture commodities such as movies, music albums, animation series, and television programs.

The report closely analyses four cases of entrepreneurship in popular culture, which exemplify the driving forces and the intended and unintended consequences of entrepreneurship, and outlines the wider theoretical and methodological implications for this concept by defining the relations between structural determinism and human agency in popular culture.

The report contains dynamic perspectives and critical responses from many experts, based on in-depth interviews with 65 cultural industry personnel in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Bangkok and Seoul between April 2004 and June 2006.

This article is helpful for my research to identify Entrepreneurship as a key successful element in the process of commodifying and marketing popular culture, especially for globalization of Asian TV contents. 

Soap Drama

Kim, DK. (2009) “Television drama, narrative engagement and audience buying behavior: The effects of Winter Sonata in Japan”. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, vol. 71 no. 7, pp. 595-611

This article specifically investigates the perception of Japanese audience members toward the most remarkable Korean TV-series, Winter Sonata’s narrative and how this perception influenced their buying behavior of Winter Sonata memorabilia, such as clothing, cosmetics, DVDs/CDs of the program, trip to Korea and so on.

Kim (2009) finds that the popularity of the drama was generated by Japanese audiences’ engagement with its narrative, claiming “it was perceived as being coherent, realistic and emotionally involving…the emotional involvement variable in the narrative was the strongest one affecting audience members’ purchasing behavior” (Kim, 2009, pg.605)

The report provides data analysis on Japanese audiences’ perception of the narrative quality of Winter Sonata, mainly using web-based survey. However, their prediction could been biased and restricted in regards to age and gender of overall Japanese fans of Winter Sonata as there hasn’t been tangible or practical approach for passive audiences. In addition, more research is required to update on Japanese fans behavior towards to current trendy K-dramas as Winter Sonanta is a decade old production.

This article can be helpful for my research topic’s case study to particularly focus on Korean typical ‘soap drama’, Winter Sonata, and determine key successful element in regards to its narrative structure for creating cross-cultural connection. This will also support my findings about its overall influence across Japan, creating a new perceptual image of South Korea and its role in constructing Asian solidarity based on popular consumption.

Government policy – National branding, Soft Power

Sung, SY. (2010) “Constructing new image. Hallyu in Taiwan”. European Journal of East Asian Studies, vol.9 no.1, pp. 25-45.

This paper discusses the role that hallyu, the Korean Wave, has played in reconstructing the image of South Korea among Taiwanese people and the role of South Korean government in improving it, utilizing this phenomenon in developing the nation’s ‘soft power’.

Sung (2010) focuses on how a once-held negative image of South Korea has been transformed, claiming “South Korea had a negative image in Taiwan, especially after 1992, when South Korea broke off diplomatic relations with Taiwan…The memory of this seeming betrayal began to change after the Korean Wave started to boom”. (Sung, 2010, pg.26)

The report contains highly reliable and dynamic perspectives with its ethnographical research in both Taiwan and South Korea for a long period of time between 2000 and 2009. It takes critical analysis of hallyu, based on personal interviews, emailed questionnaires and website interviews from various culture, politic and media experts. Sung (2010) exemplifies many K-dramas, such as Dae Jang Geum and Full House, and other Korean popular culture in order to support his argument.

This paper is helpful for my research to examine Korean Wave as a case study of successful transnational television in East Asia and investigate its relationship with government policy and development of Korean national branding and soft power. 

Understanding Korean Wave – background/history

Kim, JY. (2007) “Rethinking media flow under globalization: rising Korean wave and Korean TV and film policy since 1980s”. PhD thesis. University of Warwick.

This thesis provides definition, methodology and historical background of the Korean wave, Hanryu. It also explores how recent cultural opening under globalisation in Korea has affected Korea’s cultural industries both quantitatively in terms of economic performance and qualitatively in terms of cultural content, identity and diversity.

In particular the thesis considers Hanryu in terms of the cultural influence on neighbouring countries manifest through tourism and a new interest in Korean language and culture. Kim (2007) eventually comments on some of the difficulties and limitations in sustaining such a balance and concludes by considering the sustainability of Hanryu both in Korea and in the broader Asian context.

The report provides highly practical and logical results, supported by statistical data; historical material, interview and simple graphic representations, distilling the important findings.

This report will be helpful for my research to clearly define “Hanryu” with its historical background and to understand many implications with regards to cultural policy in periphery countries under globalization. In addition, this will develop my findings about some of restrictions and criticisms about “Hanryu” and consider future trend of Korean media industries.

Globalisation and Korean Wave 

Yang, J. (2012) “The Korean wave (hallyu) in East Asia: A comparison of Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese audiences who watch Korean TV dramas”. Development and Society, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 103-147 

This report utilises statistical data to analyse the size as well as changes over time and variations among countries and genres of Korean cultural products exported to East Asian countries for the past several years and also to examine changes in cultural policies and market situations both in Korea and other East Asian countries.

Yang (2012) discovers that “the total value of exportation of the Korean culture industry…increased more than twice to 939 million dollars in 2004”. (Yang, 2012, pg.122)

The paper highly contains logical and critical information/analysis on the flow of Korean cultural products to three neighboring East Asian countries: China, Japan and Taiwan and provides structural and institutional background on Hallyu, mainly supported by frequency tables and some cross-tabulations, sourced from the 2008 EASS (East Asian Social Survey) data.

This paper is helpful for my research topic to investigate logical data and statistical measurements on globalisation of Korean wave in periphery countries and to determine the factors for the rise of Hallyu.

Transnational Media Challenge – Cultural Imperialism? 

Iwabuchi, K. (2008) “Discrepant Intimacy: Popular Culture Flows in East Asia” in J.Erni and S.Chua (eds), Asian Media Studies: Politics of subjectivities. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 19-36.

 This article analyses the cultural homogenizing effects of modernization, industrialization and the intensification of popular culture media flows. Iwabuchi (2008) emphasizes a point that while it is usually the US that is associated with images of “modern”, it is significant to understand that globalization does not necessarily just mean the spread of western (or American) products to origins across the globe.

The author states “non-western players also actively collaborating in the circulation of global media products”. (Iwabuchi, 2008, pg.19) Popular culture in East Asia “in most cases, unavoidably embodies American origin…[but] not without east Asian flavour”, (Iwabuchi, 2008, pg.20) explaining that there is still strong sense of “bizarre sameness” in the identification of cultural hybridization.

 The report provides credible theories on its topic through examination on case studies of Japanese TV dramas in Taiwan such as Tokyo Love Story and of Hong Kong stars in Japan.

This article is helpful for my research topic to determine how the perception of cultural intimacy and “familiar difference” of cultural neighbors is experienced differently and unevenly as media industries increasingly capitalize on the regional cultural resonance in East Asia.

Further readings

http://angrykpopfan.tumblr.com/post/25567378491/academic-sources-for-k-pop-hallyu-studies

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Pro Tool 7 Basic Tips

April 12, 2013 in Radio 1

Set Up : File > New session> 48kHz & 24 Bits > Save

Importing sound file into Pro Tools

  1. From the menu bar at the top of the screen, select File > Import > Audio to Track
  2. Navigate to the audio files you’ve saved on your computer, or to files on a CD, and select all that you want to import.
  3. They will appear in the lower left in the “Regions in Current File” box.
  4. Click the “Convert” button if it is blue-highlighted.
  5. If all the files that you want to import appear in the right-hand box “Regions to Import ” box, click “Done” to import.
  6. You will be prompted for a save location after clicking “Done”. Choose the “Audio Files” folder for your session.

Edit Window

Make sure the Edit window is open by selecting Window>Edit (Apple-W) from the Pro Tools toolbar at the top of the screen.

Edit Tools

There are three primary tools that you can use to edit your audio: Trim, Selector, and Grabber.

  1. Grabbing/Moving
    1. Select the Grabber tool (the hand image) then click and drag any audio region to a new location, either on the same track or a different one.
  2. Trimming– The Trim tool (with the arrows, to the right of the Zoom tool) allows you to quickly trim off the end of a region, as well as restore previously trimmed parts.
    1. When you click on an audio region, everything from that point to the closest edge will disappear.
    2. To restore a cleared part of a region, click on the edge of the region, hold, then drag back to “reveal” the cleared audio.
  3. Selecting/Cutting/Clearing– Use the Selector tool (with the waveform, to the left of the Grabber) to select and cut any part of a region.
    1. Select by clicking, holding, and dragging with the mouse.
    2. Clear by pressing the Delete key.
  4. Separating/Splitting
    1. To separate or split a region into sub-regions, place the cursor where you want to make the separation, then go to Edit > Separate Region > At Selection.
    2. You can also select a chunk in the middle of a region with the Selector tool and go to Edit > Separate Region > At Selection to create three sub-regions.
  5. Naming– Naming regions will help you edit efficiently.
    1. With the Grabber, double-click on a region in the timeline and rename it in the box that pops-up.
    2. If you know the region by its existing name, you can find it listed in the “Regions” sub-window (to the right of the Edit window) and double-click to change the name.
  6. Copying
    1. Select part or all of a region and go to Edit > Copy (or Apple-C).
  7. Pasting
    1. Select the destination (by highlighting it with the Selector tool) for the last thing you copied and go to Edit > Paste (or Apple-V).
  8. Applying (or deleting) Fades
    1. Select part of region(s) to fade or crossfade, using the Selector tool.

Edit Mode

  1. Slip – 90% of the time you’ll want to be in Slip mode. In this mode you can freely edit and move audio regions.
  2. Shuffle – In Shuffle mode, audio regions “snap” to adjacent regions or the beginning of the track. Shuffle does not allow regions to overlap, and is useful for sequencing regions for back-to-back play.
  3. Spot – In Spot mode, you can only move regions to exact time locations; when you click on a region in Spot mode, a box will pop-up asking the time location you want to move it to.
  4. Grid – Only useful for musical applications. Works like “snap-to-grid” in graphics programs.
Basic Mixing
Click on the bar at the left of each track display in the edit window to switch from “waveform” to “volume” and other modes, to control the track in different ways. Selecting “volume” will display a horizontal line.
You can then adjust the volume of a track’s playback by making “breakpoints” by clicking with the grabber tool. Dragging a breakpoint up or down will adjust the sound level of the track.
Real Time automation 
By clicking “auto write”, it allows you to directly adjust the volume through audio desk.
Export/ Bouncing to disk
Pro Tools exporting system works differently from Final Cut Pro. In order to export finished product in Pro Tools, you need to “Bounce to Disk”.
  1. Highlight what you want to “bounce to disk” by clicking and dragging on the timeline ruler (or in a track with the Selector tool). Typically you will select the entire session but you can select a subsection. (Remember that if a track is muted, the audio on that track will not be heard in the bounced file.) You don’t need to highlight all the tracks, just the period of time you wish to bounce, all tracks will be recorded into the bounce.
  2. Once you’re ready, go to File>Bounce to Disk
  3. File Type is “.WAV”  the format is “Stereo Interleaved”, the “Resolution” is 16bit, and the “Sample Rate” is 44,100.
  4. Once you’ve made the appropriate settings, click “Bounce”.
  5. You will be prompted to name the bounced file and for a save location.
  6. Once the right location is selected click “Save” and the bounce will begin. It happens in real time and you will hear your session play back during bouncing.

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