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ABSTRACT ¡°East Asian Modernities and Local Media and Cultural Studies¡± The paper examined how East Asian media and cultural studies have approached the uneven and yet intricately connected historical formation of multiple modernities at cultural, socio-economic and political levels. The paper explored how East Asian media and cultural studies have framed their methodological and theoretical concerns in the context of rapid state-led socio-political transformation, de-traditionalization, and globalization. The first section looked back over the trajectories of the formative process of East Asian Media and Cultural Studies. In it the study inspected how East Asian MCS identify the formation of East Asian modernities in terms of the formation of cultural identities mediated by the media industries in the era of globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article criticizes that A. G. Frank’ Reorient neglects the important role of Choson Dynasty(1392-1910, in Korea) in East Asia. Frank tried to see world between 1400 and 1800 in unity in diversity and concluded that various parts of Asia, especially East Asia were far more important in and to world economy than all of Europe. He treated mainly economic, demographic, and technical development of Japan and China in East Asia. But without Choson Dynasty, anyone cannot understand and analyse properly international economic and foreign relation of East Asia. The reasons are as follows. First, Choson between 1400-1800 had developed economically as much as China and Japan. Second, Choson had played a great role in connecting China and Japan and had influenced much positive effects on development of Japan. Third, Choson could overcome so-called ‘seventeenth century crisis’ and succeeded in continuing its political system, although the Myng in China had fallen. This shows that diverse local or national ‘internal’ circumstance can cause different way of development in East Asia. So we need to reappraise Reorient’s basic proposition, a ‘horizontally integrative macro-history’ of world. Only when role of Choson can be properly estimated, dynamics and diversity of East Asia can be understood. Futhermore this right estimation of Choson between 1400-1800 can be useful in preventing danger of a newly emerging Chino-centric trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]