1st Edition

Media, Culture and Society in Malaysia

Edited By Yeoh Seng Guan Copyright 2010
    256 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    268 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book presents a comprehensive, full-length analysis of the uses of media and communication technologies by different social actors in Malaysia. Unlike other studies of the media in Malaysia which concentrate on "political economy" or "freedom of the media" approaches, this book focuses on the ways in which different media forms have constituted cultural practices and power relations amongst particular audiences and publics. It also examines the ways in which technologies of varying scales and range have been appropriated for various subaltern purposes and counter-hegemonic agendas. Drawing upon recent case studies on the deployment of different media – including mainstream and independent films, television programming, black metal music, community rituals, political advertising, the internet, and artistic visual installations – it provides valuable insights into the complex, vibrant ways in which these different media forms have negotiated with the dominant cultural representations of Malaysian society. The book makes an important contribution to the emergent disciplines of media studies and cultural studies in Malaysia.

    Acknowledgements  Introduction: Representation, Cultural Mediation and Power in Malaysia -Yeoh Seng Guan  1. Consumers, citizens and copycat TV in Malaysia -Wang Lay Kim  2. Packaging the PM: The art and ideology of political advertising - Mustafa K Anuar  3. The Dayak festival as a media ritual of nation building - John Postill  4. Civil society use of media and ICT: A case study of SOS Selangor Campaign - Sonia Randhawa and Gayathry Venkiteswaran  5. Running Cyburbia: Internet and local governance in Subang Jaya - John Postill  6. Shame and the fourth wall: Some thoughts on an anthropology of the cinema - Gordon Gray  7. Through our own eyes: Independent documentary film-making in Malaysia - Khoo Gaik Cheng  8. Reclaiming history: The politics of memory and trauma in the films of Amir Muhammad - Benjamin McKay  9. Facing the music: Music subculture and ‘morality’ in Malaysia - Azmyl Md Yusof  10. Malaysiatropia: The art of Simryn Gill, Liew Kungyu and Wong Hoy Cheong - Ray Langenbach

    Biography

    Yeoh Seng Guan is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Sunway Campus, Malaysia. He has recently published book chapters in The Other Global City and Dissent and Cultural Resistance in Asia’s Cities (both published by Routledge). He is lead editor of Penang and its Region: The Story of an Asian Entrepot.