Naren Chitty

Mapping Asian international communication

The compound descriptor ‘Asian international communication’ is analysed and defined. International communication (IC) is viewed as a constellation of foci shared by several fields including IC. Historically, IC derives its theoretical prism from western social theory, addressing problems arising from a post WWII geopolitical construct. Two subfields identified in a new definition of IC, which was developed through a Delphi Study conducted in 2009, are examined in terms of themes of relevant Asian and Eurasian sets of values. New Asia-oriented Asian IC is viewed as likely in the future, under a transformed geopolitical framework where China and India emerge as major players.

Beijing temples and their social matrix – A GIS reconstruction of the 1912–1937 social scape

ABSTRACT This paper reconstructs the spatial phenomena of Chinese temples in Beijing city during the Republican period (1912–1937). The research that informs the reconstruction is based on a Republican Beijing GIS data set that is focused on the transition of urban culture at that time. Spatial analytical methods based on GIS, including Standard Deviational Ellipse (SDE) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), are used to demonstrate the distribution and change of Chinese temples in the 1920s and 1930s, and explore their interactions with population, industry-commerce, guild and church patterns. Overall, the Chinese temples have declined slightly during the period. The relations between Chinese temples and the selected factors exhibit spatial non-stationary across the city. This study highlights the importance of employing spatial and quantitative methods to yield a better understanding of the religious culture in Republican Beijing. Beijing is one of the top-tier political capitals of the world. Uncovering its historical geography is important to an understanding of the resilience of religion in a time where some religious revival is evident.

Cities, creativity, connectivity

The Journal of International Communication adopts the themes of IAMCR conferences for its special issues. The theme of Cities, Creativity, Connectivity from IAMCR’s conference that was held in Istanbul in 2011 has attracted an interesting array of articles on pop cultural televisual portrayals of lifestyles of a fashion-conscious New Yorker quartet; fashioning monopolies in the Chinese Internet world; filial piety and intergenerational communication in China; experiences of deculturation among US Peace Corps volunteers; industry expectations of intercultural competence in public relations graduates in Singapore and Perth; the mediated online discourse on vaccination in New Zealand; and social media and the Arab uprisings. New York, to all intents and purposes, is the exemplar of avant garde urban. It is a useful peg for an issue on cities, creativity and connectivity hence the choice of cover photograph, dubbed ‘Crossroads of the World’. ‘In the ambivalent playground of postmodern identity’ is Vaia Doudaki’s discussion of the TV series ‘Sex and the City’ and its heralding of a change in representation of women as postmodern. Doudaki discusses Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Charlotte York Goldenblatt and Miranda Hobbes in relation to sexual, familial and economic freedom and the patriarchal matrix of bondage. But nothing is clear-cut in the postmodern playground and the cost to the individual is the ambivalent consciousness of freedom of identity. Diffused by cinema and internet, the lives of Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda are the subject of conversation, condemnation and copying in urban spaces carrying, in all likelihood, the same price tag. As I wrote the above paragraph I was reminded of an article entitled ‘China makes its mark with Times Square ads’ that I read on the same day in China Daily US Edition. It begins thus:

South-North Conversations

There are many ‘norths’ and ‘souths’ on the symbolic maps of culture, politics, economics and society. The American Civil War was between an industrializing North and slave-owning South in a somewhat younger USA. There is the North and South that symbolized the richer more industrialized and poorer less-industrialized regions of the world in those years of economic confrontation in the 1970s and 1980s. The alternative dynamics of the East West confrontation left behind a residue of states and cities divided politically into North and South. The German, Korean and Vietnamese nations were thus divided, and Korea continues in this volatile form. There are also North South cleavages or differences, real or perceived, within countries. The articles in this issue, by and large, are associated with conversations between various norths and souths. Since 2003, Macquarie University has hosted the Bruce Allen Memorial Lecture. The past few lectures have focused on soft power issues. They were organized by the Soft Power Advocacy and Research Centre (SPARC). Several of the lectures have been published in JIC as opinion pieces. The 2012 lecture was delivered by Dr Murray Green, the former head of ABC International (incorporating Australia Network, Radio Australia, International Projects and International Relations). Dr Green has been an ardent advocate of Australian cultural engagement in the Asia-Pacific through broadcasting. In his article, based on the 2012 lecture, he addresses the role of broadcasting in public diplomacy, questioning the effectiveness of current practice. He does so being mindful of the cultural values of Asia and that other south that includes Melanesian and Polynesian cultures. The cover picture (‘Portrait of a boy with the flag of Fiji painted on his face’) reminds us of the North in the South. In ‘Film Remakes as Cross-Cultural Connections between North and South’, C. N. Murthy undertakes a case study of the contribution made by the Telugu film industry to Indian film-making. Here north and south are broad cultural divides within India. Murthy constructs an intersection of cross-culturalism, intertexuality and industry, arguing that the more diverse a cinema industry, the better suited would it be to remake films for wider audiences. The article studies the Telugu film industry as a cross-cultural connection between North and South India. This industry has been responsible for the largest number of remakes every year for over eight decades, in a wide variety of languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, English and Telugu.

Introduction: Swords into ploughshares words into shares

When warriors fmd occasion to put nations to sword, opportunities arise for merchants to sell swords to nations. An anarchic world, or the perception of such, provides a salubrious political climate for the flourishing of military industrial complexes. When warriors make peace, swords are beaten into ploughshares and the merchants turn their attention away from windfalls brought about by blood on the streets. The non-military industrial economy jostles its way to the foreground. In our contemporary urban know-ware cultures, 1 the infoindustrial economy foregrounds the agro-industrial economy. War is fought not by swords alone; words are weapons too. Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will also harm you. The tools of both war and peace are material as well as symbolic. Like weapons, words and images may be bought and sold. However it is better by far to resolve disputes through parliamentary means than through violence, whether at the national or supra-national levels. In an Encore Presentation of a Larry King interview, David Cronkite mused thus: