De-westernizing communication research : altering questions and changing frameworks

List of illustrations . . x
Notes on contributors . . xi
Preface . . xiv
Acknowledgements . . xvi

1 Beyond de-Westernizing communication research: an introduction . . 1

PART A - Eurocentrism in communication research: the problem and its contributing factors . . 19

2 De-Westernizing communication: strategies for neutralizing cultural myths . . 1
3 Emerging global divides in media and communication theory: European universalism versus non-Western reactions . . 28
4 Globalizing media and communication studies: thoughts on the translocal and the modern . . 50
5 Orientalism, Occidentalism and communication research . . 58

PART B - The promises of focusing on the particular . . 77

6 "De-Westernizing" communication studies in Chinese societies? . . 79
7 To Westernize or not: that's NOT the question . . 93
8 Pitfalls of cross-cultural analysis: Chinese wenyi film and melodrama . . 99

PART C - From cultural specificity to cultural generality: the possibility of universal universality . . 117

9 The geography of theory and the place of knowledge: pivots, peripheries and waiting rooms . . 119
10 Journeys to the West: the making of Asian modernities . . 137
11 Moving beyond the dichotomy of communication studies: boundary wisdom as the key . . 157
12 Beyond ethnocentrism in communication theory: towards a culture-centric approach . . 172
13 Reconceptualizing de-Westernization: science of meaning as an alternative . . 189

PART D - Opportunities, limitations, and implications for future research . . 205

14 Whither Eurocentrism? Media, culture and nativism in our time . . 207
15 The production of Asian theories of communication: contexts and challenges . . 222
16 The definition and types of alternative discourses . . 238
17 After the fall of the Tower of Babel: culture-commensurability as a point of departure . . 254

Index . . 276