Winter Workshop:Soft Power and Spheres of Influence in South and Southeast Asia

Program draft January 12-14, 2006

Location: National University of Singapore,Arts Building 7 (AS7) | Seminar Rooms A, B & C

Thursday, January 12th

Morning and mid-day open for interviews and meetings for those visiting Singapore

2:30pm Shuttle bus from Orchard Parade hotel to NUS

3pm Welcome Tea

3:30pm Welcome and Opening RemarksPeter Reeves, Joseph Turow, Alyssa Ayres

4pm-6pm 1. Kickoff Session | Media Across Borders: Theory and Practice

4-4:20 Joseph Turow, Annenberg School for Communication“Media Storytelling, Marketing, and Soft Influence”

4:20-4:40 Durreen Shahnaz, managing director, Shahnaz Media Consulting“Marketing Media across South and Southeast Asia”

4:40-5:40 Discussion

6pm Shuttle bus back to Orchard Parade hotel

7pm Dinner--tbd

Friday, January 13th

8:30am Shuttle bus from Orchard Parade hotel to NUS

9am-11am 2. Branding Across Regions

9-9:20 Faizal bin Yahya, National University of Singapore

Project for Global Communication Studies Center for the Advanced Study of India South Asia Studies Programme

“Brand India and South East Asia”

9:20-9:40 Jatin Atre, Annenberg School for Communication“Neighbor’s Envy, Owner’s Pride: Impact of Changing Commodities to Brands in Southeast Asia”

9:40-10:40 Discussion

10:40 Tea break

11am-12:30pm 3. New Media, New Spheres of Influences?

11-11:20 Ariel Heryanto, University of Melbourne“New Media and Pop Cultures In(ter) Asia”

11:20-11:40 Alyssa Ayres, University of Pennsylvania“Changing Spheres of Influence in Asia”

11:40-12:30 Discussion

12:30-1:30pm Lunch

1:30-2:45pm 4. The Soft Power of Development, Governance and Migration

1:30-1:50 Rahul Mukherji, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Institute for South Asian Studies,National University of Singapore“Global Economic Integration in a Plural Polity: An Asian Model with a Difference”

1:50-2:10 Arunajeet Kaur, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore“The Role of the Migrating Indian Professional in Re-Imaging India”

2:10-2:45 Discussion

2:45-3:00pm Tea break

3:00-4:30pm 5. The Digital Divide and Developmental Issues in South and Southeast Asia

3:00-3:20 Jayan Jose Thomas and Milagros Rivera, National University of Singapore“Informational Requirements of Rural Populations”

3:20-3:50 T.T. Sreekumar, National University of Singapore“Global Civil Society and Cyber-libertarian Developmentalism”

3:50-4:30 Discussion

4:30pm Shuttle bus back to Orchard Parade hotel

7pm Dinner—tbd.

Saturday, January 14th

8:30am Shuttle bus from Orchard Parade hotel to NUS

9am-10:40am 6. Cinema’s Power Across Borders 9-9:30 Gyanesh Kudaisya, National University of Singapore

“Celluloid Across the Barbed Fence” (+ clips)

9:30-10 Sathiavathi Chinniah, National University of Singapore“The Soft Power of Tamil Cinema” (+clips)

10-10:45 Discussion

10:45 Tea break

11-11:45am 7. Virtual Session and Wrap-Up

11-11:20 Monroe E. Price, Director, Project for Global Communication StudiesAnnenberg School of Communication

11:20-11:45 Closing discussion Peter Reeves, South Asian Studies Programme, NUS“Reflections on the Conference”

12-2pm 8. Final lunch with keynote address by Amb. Kishore Mahbubani

12-12:05pm A few words about South Asian Studies and research at the National University of Singapore by Dean Tan Tai Yong, Associate Professor of History; Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; and Acting Director, Institute of South Asian Studies (NUS)

12:05-12:10 A few words about the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences (SAS), and introduction of Ambassador Mahbubani byDean Rebecca W. Bushnell, Thomas S. Gates Jr. Professor of English, and Dean, School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania

12:10-2 Final Lunch with keynote address by Ambassador Kishore MahbubaniDean, Lee Kwan Yew School of Public PolicyNational University of Singapore

2pm Shuttle bus back to Orchard Parade hotel

Afternoon and evening free (many participants from abroad will be leaving on early am flights out of Changi).

Abstracts:

Joseph Turow, Annenberg School for Communication, University of PennsylvaniaMedia Storytelling, Marketing and “Soft Influence”: A Theoretical Perspective

Much of the output of media and marketing firms can be seen as storytelling, and observers often use the phrase “soft power” to describe popular transnational streams of media/marketing stories.  The term “soft” signifies power not associated with “command behavior,” but rather with the “mysterious” ability to “attract,” in the words of  Joseph Nye.  But an industrial perspective on the drivers of popular culture makes clear that strong economic, political and even military activities-hard power-set the stage for the production, distribution and popularity of entertainment, news and advertising, and the soft influence that accompanies them.  In complex ways, and often with substantial time lags, these complex forces shape stories that make people over time feel good about certain world views.   Examples from the United States suggest a framework that might apply to thinking on soft power and new spheres of influence in South and Southeast Asia.

Durreen Shahnaz, consultant to media corporations and government agencies; former general manager for South and Southeast Asia, Reader’s DigestMarketing Media in Asia

Media is perhaps one of the most dynamic industries in Asia today. In the past decade, media has cut across national boundaries and created new spheres of dominance. Drawing from practical experience, I will discuss the role of media in South and South East Asia’s social, cultural, economic and political development. The focus of the discussion will be on content, brand, culture, language, advertising across various forms of media and how all these are culminating into soft power for certain countries. 

Faizal Yahya, South Asia Studies Program, National University of SingaporeBrand India and Southeast Asia

The Indian brand is strongly influenced by the perceptions and views that were shaped by the media. In this context, apart from the media, the Southeast Asian region was also strongly linked by history, culture and religion to India. Since 1991 and the implementation of India’s Look East policy, the Southeast Asian region has strengthened its links with India. From India’s perspective the Southeast Asian region is both a potential market place for Indian products and services as well as locations to manufacture products and develop services. There are several advantages for India to market its goods and services in Southeast Asia not only because of the shorter distance but also due to the sizeable number of people of Indian origin (PIOs) and the movement of Indian skilled and professional labour in the region.

Indian fashion, food and toiletries had always a strong presence in the Southeast Asian region. The greater demand and mobility of Indian labour in relation to high technology industries such as information technology (IT) is not only having a positive influence on the perception of a brand India but are themselves creating the marketability of Indian goods and services in the region. The aim of this paper will be to discuss how Indian branded goods and services are making in roads into the Southeast Asian region. The paper will also examine whether the perception of brand India is becoming more positive in the region. Indian goods may not be as low cost as Chinese goods but they are proving to be of better quality and costs less than Japanese made goods.

What are the future projection for Indian goods and services in the Southeast Asian region? There seems to be synergy of branding, marketing and retailing of Indian products in the Southeast Asian region. For example, Indian beers and wines could be marketed and retailed at the thousands of Indian speciality shops, restaurants and bars in the region.

Jatin Atre, Annenberg School for Communication, University of PennsylvaniaNeighbor’s Envy, Owner’s Pride: Impact of Changing Commodities to Brands in Southeast Asia

The perceptions of one country (let's call it Country A) in another (Country B) may be communicated through three primary conduits - men, materials, and the media. Thus, the "image" of Country A in Country B is formed through its expatriates living in B (i.e. men or women), its products consumed in the B (i.e. materials), or the way that media viewed in B depicts A. This paper focuses on how the quality, reputation, and overall experience with the products that originate in Country A, being used in Country B, affect not only the image but potential policies and socio-cultural alliances of country B with A.  People spend both time and money in consuming commodities. While the purchase decision may itself involve considering where the product originates, post-purchase experience with a foreign product affects the perception of the foreign country. Simply stated, a country's products and brands are its most omnipresent "inanimate ambassadors" abroad. Using India as a case-study this paper tracks, how the quality, reputation, and overall experience with Indian brands consumed in Southeast Asia play a major role in how the importing countries perceive India in other domains (e.g. politics, culture etc.) India is a quintessential case - as distinct phases in the type of products it exports (i.e. beginning from industrial goods to software products) may be linked to the perceptions and policies that the importing countries formed towards it at those junctures.  Thus, it shows that a country's "inanimate ambassadors" posses unique soft powers in lobbying the market for cultural and political loyalties abroad.

Ariel Heryanto, University of MelbourneNew Media and Pop Cultures in(ter-)Asia One concomitant aspect of the deepening industrialization in Southeast Asia since the 1980s is the series of new phenomena in mass communication, entertainment industries, and identity formations predicated on consumption. Although these phenomena are inseparable from the political and economic dynamics of the region, they cannot be understood merely as a consequence of the latter. During the Asian economic meltdown in 1997 pop cultures in this area have been reinvigorated like never before. In contrast to political and economic studies of the industrializing Asia, those on pop cultures have generally been scant, empirically oriented, and country-based.

Currently I am in a preliminary stage of investigating existing relevant literature on these new phenomena in comparative perspectives, identify some of the latest developments and insights, and raise theoretical and methodological questions that may inspire new ways of investigating this territory, and throw light on the trajectories of post-Cold War Southeast Asian studies.

Alyssa Ayres, Center for the Advanced Study of India, University of PennsylvaniaChanging Spheres of Influence in Asia: New Configurations of Culture and Power

Americans have only just begun to grapple with the rapid changes taking place in Asia over the past decade. Foremost among these are the rise of China and India and what that will mean for the shape of power and influence in the future. Over the course of the past year, for example, three new trade books have sounded the warning bells of a future in which China and India stand to displace American economic influence in Asia, if not globally. The December 2005 East Asian Summit—convened, notably, in the absence of the United States—served to further this prognosis.

Nearly all of the focus, at least viewed from US shores, has centered on the location of economic production, be it manufacturing or knowledge work, low-cost garments or high-tech outsourcing. Yet there is another sphere, I would argue one as important, in which rapid changes are taking place: the fuzzy world of soft power. Globalization, so recently synonymous with Americanization, has begun to mean something

different, an integration and space of cultural flow taking place beyond hoary core-periphery models. And it is in Asia that the spaces of interaction are radically changing, in spite of what at one time might have been formidable barriers of language or culture. While I would not argue that we are witnessing a new 1950s-style “Asianism” in the cultural sphere, it does appear that some new post-national sense of an Asian cultural sphere is in the process of formation. This paper—essentially two essays in progress—traces these spaces of cultural engagement within Asia, and attempts some linkages between cultural flows and power in this new world.

Rahul Mukherji - Institute of South Asian Studies, NUS; and Centre for Political Studies, JNUGlobal Economic Integration in a Plural Polity: An Asian Model with a Difference

India’s growing exports, most notably in the IT and outsourced services area, its robust trade, and, its sustained growth, have earned it respect as one among the four emerging economies in the world with a major role in this century. India’s story of sustained growth driven by export orientation will shift the attention of the world to a story of political and economic change in a plural setting, quite different from explanations of the East Asian success stories. The political dynamics of economic change in India is especially relevant in a world where countries from East Asia to Latin America are increasingly embracing the democratic route to politics. The political and economic logic of India’s transition is neither discussed systematically in the development literature nor has it much appreciation within multilateral organizations. The soft power of a developmental model with strong and often authoritarian states drew its inspiration from scholarship on the East Asian miracle. India’s case offers the possibility of comprehending transitions in softer and more plural polities. It is especially relevant in a rapidly democratizing world. The political economy of institutional change shares some resemblance with stories of the major transitions in the US and UK. I will present the logic of change drawing from the transformations in trade and telecommunications policies in India. It is a story of ideas, interests and crises that gave birth to institutional change in India.

Arunajeet Kaur, National University of Singapore The role of the migrating Indian professional in re-imaging India

The global shift towards knowledge-based economies has created a demand for professionals from India, particularly in sectors such as ICT in countries like the USA, Europe and Singapore. As e-commerce and business expands, the US has become more liberal in issuing H1-B visas hoping to attract relevant human talent that would quench the demand for knowledge workers. In Southeast Asia, Singapore has been in the race to become the talent capital, while Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor project has also created a demand for knowledge workers. With an education system grounded in the sciences and the prestige of its IITs and IIMs, India breeds graduates in the knowledge industries, equipped with the ability to communicate in the English language, that are in demand in particularly the developed countries. In 1999, Indians were the leading group to have attained H1-B visas in the US and recently, official informants have confirmed that Indians have overtaken Malaysians in successfully attaining professional employment passes in Singapore. The migration of India’s knowledge workers, especially since the early 90s, has been captured by scholars studying issues of brain drain (Khadria, 1999), the internalization of computer professionals (Lakha, 1992) and migration network systems (Xiang Biao, 2004). However, very little has been said about the impact of Indian professionals working abroad on the profile of the Indian Diaspora.

Pre KBE, Indian migrants were perceived in somewhat ‘refugee’ status, either as dependants of the former British empire, consisting of low grade civil servants , coolies, plantation and menial workers, or as opportunists, professional or otherwise, escaping poverty, difficult circumstances and a lack of opportunities in India. However, the current migratory, global network of Indian professionals has incited a different perception of Indian migrants and inadvertently of India in the various host countries. They are recognized for the value add they bring to the human capital of the receiving country’s population and as earners of professional, middle income, they are valued for their role as consumers in the host country. Although India still reveals itself to be

in an atrocious state of poverty and illiteracy, the focus has somewhat shifted on a ‘New India’ of which these migrating Indian professionals are representatives.

This global network of Indian professionals has gained significance hand in hand as India has been staying committed to its economic reformation since the early 90s. The presence and contribution of Indian professionals in host developed countries had facilitated an eagerness to strengthen ties with India to ensure knowledge circulation and capitalize on the consumer needs of the Indian middle class, out of which these migrating Indian professionals are emerging from.

This presentation will examine the role Indian professionals have had in countries such as Singapore and other developing regions of Southeast Asia in re-imaging India as a valuable ally in development and economic opportunities in the era of globalization.

Jayan Jose Thomas and Milagros Rivera, National University of SingaporeInformational Requirements of a Rural Population: Reflections Based on Field Studies in Two Indian Villages

South and Southeast Asia are home to a large rural population. Information aids development, and information about people, markets and government are crucial to economic and social development of rural South and Southeast Asia. Given this context, this paper aims to understand, first, some of the characteristics of the demand for information from a rural population, and secondly, the effectiveness of various types of media for communication in rural areas. Empirical support for this paper comes from field studies conducted in July-August 2004 in two rural locations in India – Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh and Malappuram in Kerala. Based on the findings from field studies, the paper also reflects on the possible impact of new media and communication technologies on the future trajectory of development of India and Southeast Asia.

The paper finds that informational requirements of a rural community are dependent on the level of its socio-economic achievements. For instance, information about agricultural prices will be hardly of any use to landless households but quite useful to the richer households. The paper also finds that there is great demand from the rural population for an innovative medium that facilitate communication and information sharing, while at the same time, being easily accessible like television. It appears that the attractiveness of television to the rural population lies in the fact that it combines visual and audio effects and is less demanding of the cognitive skills of the user. India and some Southeast Asian countries particularly Philippines are today among the major centres for growth of new media and animation industries -- but mostly as outsourcing locations for western media companies. It is important that India, Philippines and other countries in the region seek avenues for cooperation in the new media industry, and develop media products targeted at the rural population in these countries.

T. T. Sreekumar (CNM)Global Civil Society and Cyber-libertarian Developmentalism in India

The convergence of development rhetoric and information society theories in discourses on digital divide and informational capitalism marks a cyber-libertarian turn in development studies. In this debate civil society is often conflated with information society and a deterministic position that the increases in productivity brought about by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) would lead to a progressive weakening of power structures that formed the basis of social organization under industrial capitalism is held as a central thrust. Many “new times” theorists have argued that communication technologies can undermine strong power pyramids more directly. This approach largely ignores the deep contradictions of informational capitalism characterized by increasing income inequalities reinforcing development divides, social exclusion and dependency. The new cyber-libertarian approach in development theory is characterized by two interrelated arguments on the political economy of development. On the one hand it argues that in advanced industrial capitalist world wider use of ICTs would provide the basis for the creation of a more equitable and democratic society there by obviating the old concerns of radical social transformation while on the other hand it proceeds to show that a diffusion of ICTs to the less developed countries and within less developed countries to rural areas would help to bridge the development divide and create a more equitable world order. Private-civil society

partnerships are promoted to achieve this goal which is most often muddled in deep contradictions and has led to frictions between state and civil society in rural Asia. In other words, the cyber-libertarian approach regards bridging of the digital divide as a precondition for emancipation from poverty through rapid economic growth with State at large and privatization and market –civil society linkage as a crucial strategy while ignores the important consequence that it reinforces existing social divides in rural areas on the one hand and creates new divides on the other. Globalizing civil society in India had been in the forefront of this ideological campaign. Heavily depended on funding from Transnational NGO’s ICT based civil society action in developing countries is moulded by the priorities set by them. Projects are often affected by a twin action of resource constraints and elite capture of the technology and /or market seizure which leads to gradual privatization of community initiatives. This presentation looks critically at the issues involved in the pragmatics and rhetoric of ICT based initiatives in the context of the increasing dependence of these organizations on the transnational NGOs.

Gyanesh Kudaisya, South Asian Studies Programme, NUS Celluloid Across the Barbed Fence: cultural consumption and spheres of influence in the India-Pakistan divide This discussion explores cross-border cultural consumption within South Asia by focusing on cinema in the context of the India-Pakistan divide. It looks at the ways in which the Partition impacted upon the film industry in the 1940s and 1950s in terms of movement of artistic talent, the production and distribution of films and in the shaping of genres. The discussion also takes up visual representations of Partition and the ways in which they have changed over the decades. Overall, it highlights the complexities of imposing territorial boundaries upon shared patterns of cultural consumption as well as the changing nature of cultural flows across borders in postcolonial South Asia

Sathivathi Chinniah, PhD candidate, South Asian Studies Department, NUSThe soft power of Tamil cinema

This presentation forms part of my larger thesis in which I argue that western feminist film theories are inadequate to fully interpret female film representations in Tamil cinema. In proposing an alternate framework for a more comprehensive reading of feminine depictions in Tamil films, I explore cultural notions of ideal womanhood in the Tamil context and its influence on changing representations of women in Tamil cinema. In addition, I include an analysis of audience interpretations on female representations in three Tamil films. Acknowledging the “soft power” of Tamil cinema in regions beyond Tamil Nadu, I take into consideration three different groups of audiences for my research purpose. I carried out focus group discussions with rural and urban viewers in Tamil Nadu, as well as a Singapore audience group that belongs to the Southeast Asian diasporic setting. In this paper, I present my findings, highlighting similarities and differences in the ways in which the different audience groups receive the female representations in the film narratives. In doing so, I investigate Tamil cinema’s sphere of influence in helping formulate cultural notions of gender in both the domestic and foreign contexts.