Cultural Connections Between Asian and Western Media Akif, Osman, and Subhani state that media portrays the current age, recognizing and communicating negative and positive occurrences transpiring around us. Besides functioning as a means for exposing and dealing with a number of problems from diverse angles, it also produces positive representations and impressions as well as considers communities' ingrained history. Its contribution to the production and economic sectors is considerable. Assortment and transparency, the primary level, promotes and cultivates overall media, offering the economic and political domains sound authority or control. This represents a bottom-up and top-down strategy as media channels' scope covers both the destitute and the wealthy, the strong and the weak. Media protects specific populations' interests, fosters receptiveness and ensures administrative and governmental accountability when it comes to saving and protecting the environment. The worldwide advertising cost occurs due to the media's capability of influencing and modifying behavior. Considerable funds are expended towards persuading people, companies and groups across the globe and producing change within them. The media enjoys variable efficacy when it comes to altering views and inspiring change (Sinclair).

In Rohn's opinion, just as in all other cases, place and time have perpetual significance even in case of media. Media content variations have arisen on account of cultural obstacles. From the point of view of organizations, culturally-dependent audiences' requirements pose obstacles to entry into overseas markets. The growing international individual and goods movement implies an entry into 'imagined domains' in which social networks are forged without any national interest, boundary or flag. Global audiences are not cognizant of symbols and signs. A second disparity between nations is linguistic obstacles. While media channels translate content into local languages, its success is impacted by linguistic obstacles.

Literature Review

Facts about our world are communicated to developing nations from the industrialized ones. Of late, media channels in Asia have attempted at challenging and surpassing their rivals in the West, who dominate the international media market. While industrialized and Asian nations constitute around 14% of the global population, they are in control of approximately 66% of overall information movement. Further, the Asian media has attempted at more fairness, objectivity and thoroughness of coverage as compared to its Western counterpart. Media companies in Asia, especially those based in developing countries, currently engage actively in global events and cooperate better with one another in the reporting of regional news. One will no longer witness a monopoly when it comes to reporting major regional events and news in the continent, as media channels now share, edit, and exchange reports and facts for offering improved content to audiences. The Asian media sector is now studying novel technologies for transmitting information via cellphones and the World Wide Web. Beginning from the sixties, it has been growing and improving, contesting the unfair monopoly of the industrialized countries and acquiring global dominance (Chan & Suen).

Information movement and media content differences between the unindustrialized and industrialized countries hasn't experienced much change since several decades, owing to Western media channels' misconceptions and prejudiced views of Asian and developing societies. The Asians have learnt the skill of self-investment and relocating their resources for acquiring control and supporting improved communication. An example of current developments is groups and communication meetings in which nations such as Japan, China, Sri Lanka and Korea have formally agreed to make themselves heard over all other nations (People's Daily Online).

Rudolph indicates that Asian media challenges have an association with cultural politics. Competition in the area of producing culture and disagreements with regard to its meaning constitute the foremost challenge; the contemporary world pursues individual value and identity that can be evident by means of media. It promotes station, money and authority circulation. Another challenge is: the...

The media's capability of concealing and exposing social realities is both an opportunity and a challenge. Media can symbolically and non-symbolically deal with and convey societal realism, romanticism, idealism, symbolism, and classism. It expands culture via globalization and global idea/information interchange. However, at times, the reporting of conflicting opinions with regard to diverse sovereigns may exacerbate hostilities between countries.
Iwabuchi elucidates that during the past twenty years, the world has seen extraordinary media culture production advancements and their international dissemination across the globe. Among the major areas wherein such cultural expression alternatives have thrived is East Asia which has witnessed growing cultural blending and organizational collaborations, besides a trend of intraregional consumption. These cultural dynamics illustrate novel forms of cultural relationships and innovation, and advance them across national boundaries. Cultural and media globalization has achieved a whole new level of diffusion and growth. Listening to pop songs produced by Chinese musicians, watching Korean soap operas and Asian movies coproduced internationally, and reading Japanese comics have now become commonplace practices in urban East Asia. Although media culture links between Asian countries have been in place for much longer, very dramatic growths and transformations have been seen beginning from the early nineties. This post-Cold War era has been characterized by major globalization process development. International goods, individual and capital movement has increased further by neoliberalism marketization diffusion and the strengthening of global migrant, vacationer and labor ethno-flow. Just as significant is the advancement of cultural and media globalization. Digital communication technology growth has personalized and decentered media usage besides lending itself to global media market integration and permeation by Time Warner, Disney, News Corporation and other dominant international media culture advocates (Iwabuchi).

Globalization of culture doesn't simply imply the dissemination of Western (largely US origin) products worldwide via media companies. Moreover, the growth of extra-American media culture generation capability has become prominent and a highly dynamic example of this is East Asia. Advanced media culture generation capability like East Asian movies, pop music and television has triggered regional coproduction, and intraregional media culture dissemination and use. The region has been recognizing media cultures belonging to other East Asian areas at a remarkable rate, resulting in the development of novel relationships between media culture businesses and individuals (Iwabuchi).

Analysis

Media represents the strongest and most important means of expression within the current globalization era. The Asian continent has understood media's capacity of maneuvering and manipulating current agendas. While it enjoys a certain degree of Western influence, the continent's media setting differs from that of other areas across the globe. The above disparity becomes apparent if one sees its operation and performance. America has contributed significantly to the creation, sharing and understanding of cultural norms which forms the foundation of the major part of media flow. A few scholars explain the Asian-American consumer culture overlap assisted by American media. Right from fashion and furnishings to fast food, consumer culture trends (linguistic, lifestyle, and aesthetic themes) are directed from America via mediascapes to the rest of the world. Media enables individuals to converse through diverse sources. Asian nations resemble global standards in media practice as well as law. Governmental media control (linked to a smaller amount of press freedom) is larger in nations having dictatorial political institutions. Media in Asia is democratic and open (by and for the people). Government and public interest guides Asian media channels for societal advancement (Osman, Subhani & Hasan).

Since long, media cultures of East Asia have amalgamated local components whilst grasping US cultural influences. However,…