REVIEW ARTICLE Asian television dramas and Asian theories of communication

摘要

Television dramas have become dominant forms of mass entertainment in most regions of the world. They are a vital part of the offering of almost all national television services. The way television drama has evolved in Asian countries during the last three decades or so presents us with a fascinating picture of the complex intersections of modernity, culture, globalism, localism, consumerism, and tradi-tional aesthetics. When we discuss television dramas worldwide, the drama that inevitably springs to mind is the American soap opera Dallas. In the early 1980s, it achieved an unprecedented state of international visibility generating local attempts at emulation. Dallas dealt with the lives and loves, predicaments and aspirations, of a very wealthy and influential oil family in Texas. The evil personality in the television drama, J.R. Ewing became a character that earned everyone's uncontrollable hatred. This television drama was seen in many Asian countries, and modern research has shown that audiences interpreted it, attributed meaning to it, in diverse ways in keeping with their culture and guided by these cultural norms. And Asian television dramatists were inspired by Dallas to come up with their own products bearing the imprint of their respective cultures.