request for refs. on beauty contest studies. Perhaps I
could describe a bit more of my data and analysis here and I
would very much welcome your feedback, comments, suggestions
and insights on similar issues:
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THE MEDIA DISCOURSE PRACTICES AND THE "SEX INDUSTRY" IN HONG KONG
Beauty contest events are frequent in the TV media in Hong
Kong; for example, every year there are at least 4 beauty
contests hosted by the 2 competing TV networks in Hong Kong,
which is a small British colony of about 6 million people,
mainly ethnic Chinese (Cantonese speaking). The beauty
contests that have been hosted in the past 7 months include:
Miss International Chinese 1996, Miss Hong Kong 1996, Miss
Air Hostess 1996, Miss Asia 1996 (Simi-Final), and upcoming
in the next month: Miss Asia (Final).
The contest events seem to constitute an anchor on which a
lot of media, both print and non-print, do their sensational
stories. They are one major source of popular media /
entertainment topics. Newspapers / entertainment magazines
/TV /Grade 3 movies are major forms of popular culture,
entertainment in Hong Kong. (Grade 3 movies are classified
as adult movies). There is a strong media industry here.
There is also a strong sex service industry here (though
illicit on paper). This seems to have continued from an
ancient Chinese tradition (described as part of the "Market
culture" or "low culture" in ancient Chinse historic
accounts) in which mainly women and girls (but sometimes,
men and boys, too) have served as sex workers / slaves /
commodities / properties in the military, in the emperors'
and officials' establishments, in private businesses, and in
rich people's (e.g., merchants, landlords) households, and
in the market.
You might recall the plight of the so-called "comfort women"
recruited/kidnapped into the Japanese army to provide sex
service to soldiers during the 2nd World War (Unfortunately,
to this date, they still haven't got an official "apology"
from the Japanese government; see recent news reports about
ex-"comfort women"'s protests against the Japanese official
stance on this historical issue). This practice, however,
has had a long history in ancient China, too (recorded in
ancient Chinese historic accounts) (There's "nothing new
under the sun", is there?!)
In my data collected from the newspapers, magazinese and TV
tapes in Hong Kong, there is a lot of evidence pointing to a
collusion between the media, the beauty contest events and
the "sex industry".
I would like to do a study grounded in fine-grained analyses
of discourse data (from both print and non-print) with a
view to analysing our popular cultural practices that have
both constituted and legitimized the collusion and the "sex
industry" in the society.
As I'm not familiar with the feminist literature (with my
training mainly in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and
education), I would welcome your insights and comments from
feminist /critical cultural studies and/or other
perspectives. And I would very much like to learn about
studies on similar issues elsewhere.
Thanks very much in advance!
Angel
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Angel Lin, Ph.D.
Dept of English
City University
Hong Kong
E-Mail: enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk