Abstract

Hong Kong was once an established hub of creativity in Asia recognized internationally for its cinema, Bruce Lee and Kung Fu. Cantopop, its particular form of pop music, was popular throughout China and East Asia from the 1970s. So why is Hong Kong’s creative industry today in a state of stagnation?

Cultural Policy and East Asian Rivalry unravels the challenges faced by the creative industries in Hong Kong in relation to the wider East Asian context in countries including Singapore, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and China. Based on a four-year study of the gaming industry in Hong Kong, this book explores the barriers that creative industries face in the region. Fung argues that a lack of cultural policy in Hong Kong has damaged the gaming industry and by extension all creative industries in the region by rendering them uncompetitive. Conversely, the growing strength of cultural policy in other countries across the region has created further barriers for the industry.
For an in-depth look at the rivalry and collaboration occurring in the national game industries of Asia, Anthony Fung’s Cultural Policy and East Asian Rivalry: The Hong Kong Gaming Industry provides the most detailed and insightful examination of the intertwined industries and the cultural and political contexts in which they operate. Highly recommended for both game scholars and scholars of Asian popular culture.
Mark J. P. Wolf, Professor and Chair of the Communication Department at Concordia University Wisconsin
Led by China, where every seventh citizen is a game player, East Asia is emerging as a major hub within the global gaming industry. Focusing particularly on Hong Kong the author’s innovative combination of theoretical frames and methodologies, drawing on insights from political economy, cultural studies and policy analysis and original evidence from textual analysis, interviews, surveys and participant observation, offers an empirically rich, continually illuminating and uniquely comprehensive analysis of the region’s gaming industry in motion, from production, through distribution to consumption and policy responses. It is a landmark contribution to creative industries research that needs to be read by anyone interested in the shifting forces shaping the global organisation of popular culture and its role in everyday life and imagination.
Graham Murdock, Professor of Culture and Economy at Loughborough University
Anthony Y.H. Fung is Professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also the Pearl River Chair Professor at Jinan University, China.
Anthony Fung provides a comprehensive and stimulating analysis of Hong Kong’s game industry operating within an increasingly competitive as well as geopolitically complex environment. In this thoroughly researched book, Fung shows how the ties and competitive relations with mainland China, Japan and South Korea have shaped policies and industry developments in Hong Kong. This book will be an invaluable reference not only for students and academics in the field, but also for policy-makers and cultural industry practitioners in the region.
Xin Xin, Reader in International Communications at the University of Westminster, UK
An informative, insightful, and rewarding read, delving into the topic with a comprehensive focus of the wider regional situation — in Mainland China, Japan, and South Korea, amongst other areas — and summarising what Hong Kong can opt to do for itself, and in this wider region. Hong Kong finds itself the neighbour of a massive Chinese Mainland, yet its circumstances and interests can be vastly different than its larger neighbour across the river...
David Feng, Associate Professor at the Communication University of China
Drawing on insights from creative industry studies, political economy, cultural studies and game studies, Anthony Fung’s new book provides a fascinatingly holistic account of Hong Kong game industry. With keen awareness of the interconnected components that constitute the circuit of culture, Fung examines the production, the consumption and the regulation of video games in Hong Kong, while being attentive to the comparative insights that can be generated from this in-depth case study.
Bingchun Meng, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science