List of Acronyms
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
2.3. Media Flow and ASEAN Integration
Cultural transmission has been a very crucial aspect in the ongoing formation of the ASEAN Community and mass media can help strengthen the social fabric by employing one of its social roles: “to create a popular culture that includes customs, fads, fashions, folk songs, pop tunes, folk art, pop art, lingo, technology, norms, beliefs, personalities, and even superstitions” (Maslog, 2014 as cited in Gonzales- Flor, 2019). While the regional bloc is still considered a “work-in-progress” (Bee, 2016), at the core of this study are several works of literature from various scholars, especially Southeast Asian academics in the field of mass communication and international relations, who have already established the significant role of mass media in the ASEAN integration. Although scant, the available literature agrees that the media has the power to amplify awareness and strengthen efforts on regional integration.
The ASEAN is regarded as an “imagined community” (Acharya, 2017), and as a developing region, a “collective mind” molded by societal communication is needed to further strengthen regional identity (Flor, 1995). The European Union has this mindset, however, the “ASEAN sense of self” is absent and difficult to achieve due to the stark difference in the member states’ cultures and traditions. To aid these
differences amidst the digital divide and uneven regional media landscape (Flor, 2008; Abd & Basir, 2016), increased communication and interaction between the member states, and ASEAN media should be facilitated through various forms (Chongkittavorn, 2013).
The ASEAN Secretariat acknowledges audiovisual types of media such as films and TV shows as effective vehicles of cultural exchange (Information and Media, n.d.). To attest to the positive impact of TV dramas, Ahn (2016) studied how
media consumption of Vietnamese nationals of Filipino and Thai dramas helps in the realization of the ASEAN Community. Similarly, Kamonwan (2017) looked at how Thai citizens learn about ASEAN cultures through the TV program “ASEAN
Together” produced by Thailand. Thai citizens, in general, have a positive outlook on their regional neighbors because of mass media (Panyasopon, 2016). In an earlier study, Hassan & Ahmad (2009) looked at the ASEAN content TV programming of government-owned Malaysian channels and the factors affecting the viewers'
perceptions of these programs. They found that cultural proximity played a huge part in why Malaysian nationals watch ASEAN dramas/films and that the attraction to such content especially comes from the similarities and differences of cultural values portrayed in ASEAN productions. De la Rosa (2015), in their study of ASEAN films, emphasized the importance of audiovisual content in engendering the ASEAN Identity, which will further lead to the realization of the ASEAN Community.
The media’s role in integration is also a subject of inquiry in various parts of the world. In Australia, media’s impact on identity formation was studied by Ewart (2000), who concludes that media plays a central role in “constructing and cementing the identity and culture of communities and their publics.” Similarly, in Africa, the East Africa Community (EAC) considers media as a “disseminating agent of
integrationist ideas” which can promote awareness of the process of integration and might aid in the construction of regional identity (Mang’era, 2014). A notable point in the EAC study stressed the East African region’s desire to elevate itself from years of colonial past, highly valuing the role of mass media as a tool to bring the concepts of integration to the masses. Earlier literature also discusses regional media
integration in Africa which examines the actual continental integration of media entities to further provide information to the African region (Churchill, 1991).
However, the study argues that the creation of smaller regional entities would be more effective as it follows the assumption that “information is more meaningful to people within a certain geographical, historical, political and cultural matrix.” To note, the African region has various sub-regional economic communities such as EAC, UDEAC, ECOWAS, and ECCAS.
Most of the available research about media’s role in the European Union points to its importance in disseminating information about the Eurointegration discourse (Trenz, 2008; Scharkow & Vogelgesang, 2010; Marshall, 2011;). In
Ukraine, perspectives like Belyakov (2010) criticize the Ukrainian media for its lack of coverage of European Integration even though such a topic is important to the
nation. Ukraine is not part of the EU and promoting the regional organization’s role to Ukrainians would help in raising public awareness of the benefits and concerns in the event the country joins the EU.
Likewise in the Arab World, the realization of potentially achieving Arab unity has been a product of the decades spent in developing pan-Arab mass media infrastructures under the Arab League (Muhsin, 1992). However, their dependence on external sources and programming affected the kind of content the citizens of the region consume. In a 1983 survey on television flows, USA content dominates over locally-produced ones (Kandill, 2015). “In the television era, Western cultures have been so overwhelming that ‘there is very little that is uniquely Arab in Arab world television’ (Boyd, 1982, as cited in Kandill, 2015).
There is no doubt that mass media plays an important role in regional integration processes. In the context of the ASEAN, this research attempts to connect global media flow studies to the concept of regional integration and tries to explore the current state of ASEAN media on the popular SVOD platform Netflix.
Today, Netflix has become an important space for cultures to travel where
subscribers from various parts of the world can access a huge catalog of audiovisual content from various parts of the world. The rise of SVOD platforms demands new approaches on how to study global media flows particularly because previous studies on television flows, including satellite and cable, focused more on the programming of content which has been restricted by channel scheduling and geographical territories (Lobato, 2019). With the advent of the internet, media
content now flows multidirectional, multilinear, and simultaneously bypassing several nation-state territories. Viewers do not need to wait for the screening of scheduled programs, instead through the internet, they can access the catalogs of the platform to watch transnational media content instantly. A deeper look into the intraregional flows of ASEAN media, and questioning whether ASEAN content reaches the ASEAN people, would help determine the possible gaps to address in realizing the dream of full regional integration.