Introduction

We envisioned this section as a call for new writing on Asian media industries, and as you will see, the resulting array of voices and methods gives us fresh insights into the scope of situated studies of technologies, sites of production, and audiences. All the chapters consider trans-border processes: from the industrial and infrastructural crossing of national borders, to cross-medial transfers and borrowings, to diasporic dreams of a cinema culture that can repair broken relationships. We also discern new trends in film and media studies that stretch the possibilities of industry studies. Production ethnography still remains the preferred mode of studying media industries today, but it does not allow ready access to the past. It seems clear that for industrial histories one will have to look at other methods and sites.