Media Capital and Digital Media Cities in Asia

This chapter explores the dynamic flows of media capital in the recent developments of digital media cities in Asia. A massive shrinkage of urban public spaces caused by mega urbanization projects in Asian digital media cities has prevented any online democratic potential materializing as offline insurgencies. The experiences of digital media cities in Asia call for nuanced and critical research on culturally specific experiences of mediated urbanism. Worlding has clearly motivated many Asian cities to adopt a modernization based on catching up with the West. Studies identify a more sophisticated and hidden model of cultural imperialism, challenging the assumption that the concentration of media corporations would result in the burgeoning local cultural industries reversing global cultural hegemony. Cultural retrofitting in the Asian cities that hope to develop digital media cities requires a careful consideration of existing creative milieus, and investment in new digital media infrastructures has to take local social and cultural values as a priority rather than an afterthought.