Transcultures Book

This book examines media representations of globalization emanating from Japan and its neighbours in the 1990s and early twenty-first century. It argues that the circulation of media representations, signs and symbols, which is presented as being one of the features of globalization alongside the movement of peoples, commodities, information and capital, is more complex than hitherto suggested. The book points out that by moving away from relationships determined on the East-West Occidental-Oriental axis, and by looking at media representations in localized areas, with localized routes of circulation, new models to theorize about the construction of identity and otherness can be developed. It puts forward the idea of 'transcultures' - the idea that the regional circulation of media representations means that 'cultures' can no longer be seen as hermetically sealed entities defined by national boundaries.