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This Friday is the 4th annual CAS symposium. In this day-long conference, we will continue to examine our year-long theme, "Mediating Asia."

A great deal of our current knowledge about Asia comes to us via traditional media channels (such as print & broadcast journalism, feature films, and documentaries) and, increasingly, via less formal online channels such as blogs and social media networking sites. While Asian scholars based outside of Asia have, for some time, been engaged in critical readings of these ‘mediated’ representations of Asia, the rapid rise of Asian media industries within Asia has resulted in more diffuse representations of Asia than ever before. With ‘Mediating Asia’, the Center for Asian Studies seeks to explore the implications of these increasingly diffuse, multi-mediated representations of Asia. We take a broad definition of media to include not only print, broadcast, film, and internet formats, but also arts and literature, insofar as they might also be viewed as representations of Asia. How does Asia represent itself through Asian media?  How is the idea of ‘Asia’ as a coherent identity reimagined and represented through Asian media? What sorts of tensions, dialogues, contradictions, and collaborations exist between Asian and non-Asian media? In what ways do Asian media ‘respond’ to non-Asian representations of Asia?  How are different Asian peoples, places, or histories imagined, marketed, consumed through new Asian media channels?

On Friday, April 17, we will examine this concept of "Mediating Asia" in detail through two keynote addresses and four panel presentations. At 10:15, Endy Bayuni of The Jakarta Post will begin the symposium with his talk entitled, "Mediating Indonesia: The Slow Emergence of a Young Nation." Bayuni is a senior editor and former chief editor of The Jakarta Post, where he has worked since 1991. Bayuni regularly writes columns commenting on Indonesian domestic politics, including Islam and foreign policy conduct.

Melissa Chan will follow at 11:00 with her keynote address, "Reporting from China: Media, Human Rights, and the Authoritarian State." Chan is a San Francisco-based correspondent for Al Jazeera America. She was the correspondent in China for five years, from 2007 until 2012, where she covered the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, and the 2009 riots in Urumqi. 

The "Mediating Asia" Symposium will be held in the British and Irish Studies Room on the Fifth Floor of Norlin LIbrary, and welcoming remarks will begin at 10:00 a.m. 

Sponsored by the Center for Asian Studies; the Graduate Committee on the Arts and Humanities; the College of Media, Communication and Information; the Center for Environmental Journalism; and the Center for Media, Religion, and Culture.