Michael Keane
Michael Keane is Professor of Chinese Media and Director of the Digital Asia Research Node in the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. His research interests include China’s digital media industries, television industries, cultural and media policy, creative clusters in China and East Asia, and East Asian cultural exports.
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Books by Michael Keane
Drawing on the political economy of the media, industry analysis, platform studies and cultural policy studies, the book shows that China's commercial digital platforms are increasingly recognized outside China and can disseminate Chinese culture more effectively than government-supported media. The authors provide a comprehensive analysis of how Chinese cultural and creative industries became digital, as well as investigating the key players and the leading platforms including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, TikTok, Baidu, iQiyi and Meituan. The book argues that China’s commercial digital platforms are increasingly recognized outside China and in many cases can disseminate Chinese culture more effectively than government-supported media, although this does not necessarily translate into influence.
The sites chosen suggest that there is widespread ambivalence to China’s political messaging combined with an uneven reception of its popular culture. The book provides a critique of Western bias in soft power metrics and draws on empirical data to provide alternative readings.
The authors also analyse in detail Beijing’s changing policies towards the governance of culture, Internet technologies and digital platforms. The book illustrates how Chinese cultural power is extending overseas and the challenges of Chinese platforms, products and services in overcoming stereotyping and ‘threat’ perceptions.
The chapters represent the cutting-edge of scholarship, setting out the future directions of culture, creativity and innovation in China. Combining interdisciplinary approaches with contemporary social and economic theory, the contributors examine developments in art, cultural tourism, urbanism, digital media, e-commerce, fashion and architectural design, publishing, film, television, animation, documentary, music and festivals.
The book looks at different genres of content including serial drama, news programs, reality TV, documentary, and children’s programs. Written in an accessible style by one of world’s leading experts of China’s media, the book provides a critical account of how streamed online content is impacting on the state’s control of ideas and its management of the traditional broadcasting sector. This is the authoritative text for scholars, business and policy makers wanting to understand how the rapid evolution of Chinese media aligns with the nation’s soft power initiatives.
• Tensions continue to play out between political culture and commercial creativity in China;
• Policy makers, academics and even many ordinary citizens hope that the nation will become a ‘creative nation’ rather than a producer of cheap imitative products shipped to overseas markets;
• The cultural and creative industries are viewed by many Chinese scholars as the means by which China will radiate its ‘soft power’ to the world. ""
• Politics and communication
• Culture, identity and place
• Media institutions and commercial industries
• Methods and approaches"
This book is the first to present an organized study of the key concepts that underlie and motivate the field of creative industries. Written by a world-leading team of experts, it presents readers with compact accounts of the history of terms, the debates and tensions associated with their usage, and examples of how they apply to the creative industries around the world.
Crisp and relevant, this is an invaluable text for students of the creative industries across a range of disciplines, especially media, communication, economics, sociology, creative and performing arts and regional studies.
Creative industries maintain and protect historical and cultural heritage, improve cultural capital, and foster communities as well as individual creativity. This leads to the improvement of cultural assets of cities, the establishment of city brands and identity, the promotion of the creative economy, and overall economic and social development. In this context, creativity is changing China forever.
Cultural Adaptation explores how creative ideas are packaged and nationalised to meet local taste, maps the cultural economy of adaptation in entertainment media ranging from motion pictures to mobile phones, and even probes the role of cultural recipes and formats in mutating participatory experiences of theme parks and sporting spectacles. Written in a lively and accessible manner, the book also provides insight into remaking in lifestyle and consumption cultures including fashion, food, drink, and gambling. Essential for communication, cultural, media, leisure and consumption studies scholars and students alike, this book opens up important new perspectives on how we understand global creativity.
Ying Zhu is a professor of media culture and co-coordinator of the Modern China Studies Program at the College of Staten Island, the City University of New York.
Michael Keane is an associate professor and senior research fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology.
Ruoyun Bai is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities (Scarborough) and the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto.
This book will of use to students and professionals involved in media and communication, as well as anyone interested in contemporary China.
Talks by Michael Keane
CHINA ECONOMIC SALON #3
Friday 19th August
In the 3rd of our salons with visiting ‘cultural and creative industries’ economists from the PRC, we examined the key propositions of Li Wuwei’s new book: How Creativity is Changing China. In the English version of the book Li argues persuasively that China should transform its economic structure from labour-intensive industries to new sectors that are more capital, human capital and knowledge intensive. Among these sectors he pays particular attention to creative industries. In the wake of the current rebound of the GFC this raises the questions of how such industries might transform social conditions in developing countries (including India, Brazil). Will stimulation of CI sectors and associated regional policy induce consumers to change their behaviour, to worry less about saving for the future in the absence of social welfare provisions? Is the lowering value of Chinese exports and the shutting down of foreign invested export processing factories due to the GFC contributing to a behavioural shift? Will China move to export its culture (high value sectors) more effectively as a trade off for a shift from manufacturing? How might the challenge of reducing energy and carbon intensity factor into the transformation of developing countries like China, India and Brazil? These are some questions we discussed in the session.
Salon was introduced by Michael Keane
Speakers: Guo Yong (QUT: Xi’an Jiaotong University), Dr Lucy Montgomery (CCI), and Dr Jason Potts (CCI)
Papers by Michael Keane
Section 10.3 examines how Internet Plus has played out in China. Also noted is a propensity among China’s leading Internet entrepreneurs to talk up digital disruption as a remedy to economic stagnation.2
The ensuing sections discuss how these disruptive developments – and discourses – have played out in two key cities: Hangzhou and Shenzhen, both of which are classified as ‘cities of opportunity’ based on indicators including intellectual capital, innovation and technological readiness (Cai 2017). The examples drawn from these locales, although brief due to space limitations, show that the Chinese creative economy narrative is now deeply embedded in global networks of digital entrepreneurship and venture capital.
Section 10.6 assesses the challenges of collaborative innovation and the society-wide digital transformations that are mandated by Internet Plus.
Central to the Internet + blueprint is the slogan ‘mass entrepreneurship,
mass innovation’, suggesting elements of the kind of Silicon Valley style
neoliberalism, often celebrated in start-up cultures. While it has become
fashionable to append the term neoliberalism to China’s developments,
we argue that China’s reversion to hard authoritarianism under Xi Jinping
renders this description problematic.
Drawing on the political economy of the media, industry analysis, platform studies and cultural policy studies, the book shows that China's commercial digital platforms are increasingly recognized outside China and can disseminate Chinese culture more effectively than government-supported media. The authors provide a comprehensive analysis of how Chinese cultural and creative industries became digital, as well as investigating the key players and the leading platforms including Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, TikTok, Baidu, iQiyi and Meituan. The book argues that China’s commercial digital platforms are increasingly recognized outside China and in many cases can disseminate Chinese culture more effectively than government-supported media, although this does not necessarily translate into influence.
The sites chosen suggest that there is widespread ambivalence to China’s political messaging combined with an uneven reception of its popular culture. The book provides a critique of Western bias in soft power metrics and draws on empirical data to provide alternative readings.
The authors also analyse in detail Beijing’s changing policies towards the governance of culture, Internet technologies and digital platforms. The book illustrates how Chinese cultural power is extending overseas and the challenges of Chinese platforms, products and services in overcoming stereotyping and ‘threat’ perceptions.
The chapters represent the cutting-edge of scholarship, setting out the future directions of culture, creativity and innovation in China. Combining interdisciplinary approaches with contemporary social and economic theory, the contributors examine developments in art, cultural tourism, urbanism, digital media, e-commerce, fashion and architectural design, publishing, film, television, animation, documentary, music and festivals.
The book looks at different genres of content including serial drama, news programs, reality TV, documentary, and children’s programs. Written in an accessible style by one of world’s leading experts of China’s media, the book provides a critical account of how streamed online content is impacting on the state’s control of ideas and its management of the traditional broadcasting sector. This is the authoritative text for scholars, business and policy makers wanting to understand how the rapid evolution of Chinese media aligns with the nation’s soft power initiatives.
• Tensions continue to play out between political culture and commercial creativity in China;
• Policy makers, academics and even many ordinary citizens hope that the nation will become a ‘creative nation’ rather than a producer of cheap imitative products shipped to overseas markets;
• The cultural and creative industries are viewed by many Chinese scholars as the means by which China will radiate its ‘soft power’ to the world. ""
• Politics and communication
• Culture, identity and place
• Media institutions and commercial industries
• Methods and approaches"
This book is the first to present an organized study of the key concepts that underlie and motivate the field of creative industries. Written by a world-leading team of experts, it presents readers with compact accounts of the history of terms, the debates and tensions associated with their usage, and examples of how they apply to the creative industries around the world.
Crisp and relevant, this is an invaluable text for students of the creative industries across a range of disciplines, especially media, communication, economics, sociology, creative and performing arts and regional studies.
Creative industries maintain and protect historical and cultural heritage, improve cultural capital, and foster communities as well as individual creativity. This leads to the improvement of cultural assets of cities, the establishment of city brands and identity, the promotion of the creative economy, and overall economic and social development. In this context, creativity is changing China forever.
Cultural Adaptation explores how creative ideas are packaged and nationalised to meet local taste, maps the cultural economy of adaptation in entertainment media ranging from motion pictures to mobile phones, and even probes the role of cultural recipes and formats in mutating participatory experiences of theme parks and sporting spectacles. Written in a lively and accessible manner, the book also provides insight into remaking in lifestyle and consumption cultures including fashion, food, drink, and gambling. Essential for communication, cultural, media, leisure and consumption studies scholars and students alike, this book opens up important new perspectives on how we understand global creativity.
Ying Zhu is a professor of media culture and co-coordinator of the Modern China Studies Program at the College of Staten Island, the City University of New York.
Michael Keane is an associate professor and senior research fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology.
Ruoyun Bai is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities (Scarborough) and the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto.
This book will of use to students and professionals involved in media and communication, as well as anyone interested in contemporary China.
CHINA ECONOMIC SALON #3
Friday 19th August
In the 3rd of our salons with visiting ‘cultural and creative industries’ economists from the PRC, we examined the key propositions of Li Wuwei’s new book: How Creativity is Changing China. In the English version of the book Li argues persuasively that China should transform its economic structure from labour-intensive industries to new sectors that are more capital, human capital and knowledge intensive. Among these sectors he pays particular attention to creative industries. In the wake of the current rebound of the GFC this raises the questions of how such industries might transform social conditions in developing countries (including India, Brazil). Will stimulation of CI sectors and associated regional policy induce consumers to change their behaviour, to worry less about saving for the future in the absence of social welfare provisions? Is the lowering value of Chinese exports and the shutting down of foreign invested export processing factories due to the GFC contributing to a behavioural shift? Will China move to export its culture (high value sectors) more effectively as a trade off for a shift from manufacturing? How might the challenge of reducing energy and carbon intensity factor into the transformation of developing countries like China, India and Brazil? These are some questions we discussed in the session.
Salon was introduced by Michael Keane
Speakers: Guo Yong (QUT: Xi’an Jiaotong University), Dr Lucy Montgomery (CCI), and Dr Jason Potts (CCI)
Section 10.3 examines how Internet Plus has played out in China. Also noted is a propensity among China’s leading Internet entrepreneurs to talk up digital disruption as a remedy to economic stagnation.2
The ensuing sections discuss how these disruptive developments – and discourses – have played out in two key cities: Hangzhou and Shenzhen, both of which are classified as ‘cities of opportunity’ based on indicators including intellectual capital, innovation and technological readiness (Cai 2017). The examples drawn from these locales, although brief due to space limitations, show that the Chinese creative economy narrative is now deeply embedded in global networks of digital entrepreneurship and venture capital.
Section 10.6 assesses the challenges of collaborative innovation and the society-wide digital transformations that are mandated by Internet Plus.
Central to the Internet + blueprint is the slogan ‘mass entrepreneurship,
mass innovation’, suggesting elements of the kind of Silicon Valley style
neoliberalism, often celebrated in start-up cultures. While it has become
fashionable to append the term neoliberalism to China’s developments,
we argue that China’s reversion to hard authoritarianism under Xi Jinping
renders this description problematic.
industry, which since the early 2000s has opened to international coproductions and investment. Despite many coproduction projects being endorsement by government, results have not added significantly to China’s film-making reputation. The paper shows that coproductions
have a diplomatic function, which implies a more conventional understanding of soft power. The paper also considers the tension between artistic freedom and censorship that impacts on all coproduction projects in China and which undermines the efficacy of China’s soft power strategy. The paper advances the proposition that coproduction with countries in Eurasia under the cultural template of the Belt and Road Initiative might present new opportunities to blend China’s stories into a narrative of shared prosperity. In doing this, the advance of China’s economic power is supported by cultural policies that evoke a historical past as much as a shared future.
sector (particularly platform capitalists) to internationalize, and how digital champions such as Alibaba have responded to and embraced an outward-bound strategy. Though the Asia-Pacific represents an important region for Chinese economic security, especially when
one considers the established business interests there, extension of Chinese influence to central Asia conjures up a different kind of weida fuxing (great rejuvenation), one that evokes a great historical past—namely, the Chinese empire. Accordingly, we speculate on how digital technologies, platforms, and business mergers will facilitate Chinese influence along the digital Silk Roads.
This article investigates China’s aspirations to become an innovative creative nation focusing on specific implications of the government’s Internet+ policy within the 13th Five Year Economic Development Plan. It argues while a digital ecosystem is developing thanks to the relationship between government and China’s
leading Internet companies, a number of challenges remain if China is to become an innovative creative nation. These include harnessing the creative talents of grassroots communities, dealing with the reality of an aging population, and finding a way to produce hybrid cultural products that the world market finds attractive. The borderless connectivity of the Internet, as well as the willingness of companies, both Chinese and Western, to compromise in the pursuit of profit promises a new dawn.
Emerging economies are achieving substantial growth by providing cheap labor and preferential investment policies. For China, already an economic powerhouse,
a foreign country’s insecurity is their security: the “made in China” phenomenon manifests in products that are designed elsewhere and fabricated in China. Much of this outsourced production involves components. Economists call this “trade in- tasks,” “unbundling,” or OEM (original equipment manufacturing). In this chapter, I attempt to unbundle precarious creativity, a concept that is somewhat ambiguous and misconstrued. I look at the relationship between creativity
and knowledge capital. Knowledge capital is a currency that is much sought after in the PRC and in some respects overseas players are temporary custodians: the relationship of knowledge capital to “precarious creativity” is therefore worth exploring.
creativity. He uses the concepts of creatio in situ and affordances to
show that Chinese creativity is both contextual and relational. Keane
examines the connections between Confucian and Daoist approaches
to creativity, nature, and the market and provides a personal view of the
trials and tribulations of creativity in China over the past two decades.
Finally, he shows how the concept of affordances provides a new way of
understanding Chinese creativity. Persons, things, and discourse take on
many appearances as time goes by. The manifestation of shanzhai culture in this sense demonstrates such an affordance.
In this context my intention is to reconsider
the utility of the terms ‘cultural’ and ‘creative’, not only in China but
elsewhere in the world. In the normal order of things in China ‘cultural’
precedes ‘creative’; culture is civilizing and it orders the relations between people. With respect to industries, I believe it is now time to acknowledge a different ordering: I call this the creative <--> cultural industries.
understandings they can be remarkably successful, as with family oriented formats. Yet there is something unusual about China: in comparison to many international markets,China offers a unique demographic – those people born after 1978. The article examines a formatted programme called Where Are We Going, Dad?, introduced into China from South Korea, which illustrates a subgenre known as the ‘parent-child caring’ (qinzi) format. The article shows how this genre has capitalised on the interest in the health and future well-being of the One Child in China, as well as spinning off its own formatted offspring.
But there is some evidence that the UK’s creative industries support innovation and growth in other parts of the economy too. The significance of these spillovers has only recently begun to be examined rigorously. And we know next to nothing about their geographical dimensions.
This gap in our understanding is what NESTA set out to address in Creative Clusters and Innovation, the outcome of a two-year collaboration with Birmingham and Cardiff Universities. The study adopts the concept of creative clusters as a starting point to examine the role that creative industries play in local and regional innovation systems. Its publication accompanies an online platform we have developed for users to examine creative industry concentrations at a fine level of detail in their localities.