Call for Papers: East Asian Media Culture in the Age of Digital Platforms

The process of digital platformization has been shifting the ways in which media and popular culture evolve in the global context (Burgess, 2021; Helmond, 2015). In particular, East Asian media industries have emerged at the center of the increasing transnational flows of popular culture via global platforms – from streaming platforms (e.g., Netflix and YouTube) to portal/network platforms (e.g., Naver and Rakuten). Major platform corporations have increasingly circulated East Asian content, whereas East Asian creators explore opportunities to produce and disseminate their content globally through the platforms. Especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, during which online entertainment experiences were widely integrated into audiences’ everyday lives, East Asian media have gained the momentum to penetrate global markets. Given the importance of global flows of East Asian media and popular culture through digital platforms, it is timely to explore how East Asian media industries, content, and audiences are integrated into the process of digital platformization. In light of the rapid digital platformization of media and popular culture, the proposed conferences aim to explore various aspects of digital platform-driven media industries, texts, and audiences in East Asia, including South Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. We welcome contributions that draw on theoretical and/or empirical analyses of digital platform-driven media practices. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

·      Digital platforms and content industries in East Asia

·      Digital platforms and audiences in East Asia

·      Tensions between global and local digital platform industries

·      Intra-Asian comparison of digital platform industries

·      Creative labor in the platform-driven East Asian media economy

·      Digital storytelling in platformized media industries of East Asia

Conference Organizing Committee

o  Organizers: Dal Yong Jin (Simon Fraser University) and Kyong Yoon (University of British Columbia Okanagan)

o  Co-organizer: Benjamin Han (University of Georgia)

Dates and Venues:

o  Conference 1: Simon Fraser University’s Vancouver campus (Oct 4 and 5)

o  Conference 2 (optional): University of British Columbia Okanagan campus (Oct 7)

Travel support: We provide some benefits to the presenters, including hotel, meals, and registration fees, and we are trying to find conference grants to support travel.

Outcomes: We would like to receive the papers by September 20, 2024. Your paper has neither been published previously nor submitted elsewhere. We plan to publish an edited volume.  

Abstract Submission: Mar. 18, 2024 (300 words) to djin@sfu.ca & kyong.yoon@ubc.ca