Smoke and Mirrors — introducing this issue, Stewart Wachs:
"We who work in media are among those souls whose perceptions of life are shaped by what media does. If in the past the media was often likened to a mirror, then today it is a hall of mirrors, multiplying to infinity..."
Digital Dream or Digital Dystopia — Douglas Bullis on the future of the Internet in Asia:
"The cheerily optimistic new world of Digitopia celebrates itself as a medium possessing a mix of skills and purpose that can reinvent the world around it. If it does, the result could be a humanity the world has never seen before. Can it deliver?"
The Inner Teacher — Anuradha Vittachi on children and the Net:
"It has been calculated that it would cost US $4 billion to educate 500 million Indian children conventionally to basic level — but only half that via the Net..."
Media Virus — Douglas Rushkoff on social evolution in the datasphere
Local TV... after the Big Bang — Nakamura Koji interviewed by Jeff Irish)
Media Critic Asano Kenichi — interviewed by Stewart Wachs:
"Japan's press is at once too free and too controlled. It lacks the self-restraint essential to protect individuals' integrity and privacy, yet it also fails to assert itself as a watchdog of the authorities..."
Media Immediacy: Asia Online: KJ's new ongoing annotated introduction to Asian Internet resources — portals, news, media watchdogs, NGOs, cinema, history, and more... providing immediate access to diverse "perspectives on Asia" via the following pages:

Media Watchdogs — focusing on ethics within the media, and beyond...

Pan-Asian Sources — broad coverage of Asia by media and NGOs...

Asian Cinema — some choice sites on one of Asia's obsessions...

Asian History — old news via new media...

 

Local Asia Online — notable websites from the following countries:

Bangladesh | Burma | Cambodia | China | India | Indonesia | Japan |Korea | Laos | Malaysia | Mongolia | Nepal | Pakistan | Singapore | Sri Lanka | Taiwan | Thailand | The Philippines  | Tibet | Timor | Vietnam
The Pull of the Immediate — Pico Iyer on why we don't need media

The Warmth of the Herd — Walter Hamilton on Japanese news media, an essay from the bookLosing Control: Freedom of the Press in Asia
Perspectives Omitted, Questions Unasked — Ron Rhodes on Japanese newspapers
Media Critic Asano Kenichi — excerpts from an interview by Stewart Wachs
Cracked Mirror — Eric Johnston on Western media perceptions of Japan since Marco Polo:
"A New York Times or Independent piece on elevator girls and teenage prostitution, or a BBC piece espousing the latest electronic gizmos in Japan have much more of an impact on public policy than less influential, but better informed, media reports on the problems of Japan’s elderly or the criminal negligence of the country’s nuclear power industry."
Radio Free Burma — Chris Tenove on fostering dissent — and fear?
Emerging from Chaos — Judith Clarke on budding Cambodian journalism
Making Print History in War-torn Cambodia — Michael Hayes builds a newspaper from scratch
Covering Conflict — Sally McLaren interviews Asia correspondent Richard Lloyd Parry
Culture Jammer's Guide to Enlightenment — Gabriele Hadl talks with Adbusters' Kalle Lasn
Hidden Japan — Andy Couturier gets an offer from the Discovery Channel
Nexus of Notoriety — Philip Brasor on where media and celebrities meet in Japan
Seoul Stirring Again — Donato Totaro on Korean cinema's second new wave
Diversity Spawning Unity — Karen Mazurkewich tells why cinema is going pan-Asian
Making Audiences — Donald Richie on Japanese film as event
Encounters:
    Korea: I Spy — Learning from Pyongyang TV, Philip J. Cunningham
    Japan: Scenes from a Newsroom, Paul Baylis
Fiction: The Sunset-Colored Simca, by Itsuki Hiroyuki, trans. Ralph F.  McCarthy
Reviews
Ramble: Robert Brady on why the cloud is a rabbit
Voices
Guest Artists: Rimi Yang, Thierry Le

Extra! Online Only:
Unlearning to Not Think — Media-literacy educator Suzuki Midori, interviewed by Rebecca Jennison:
"The Education Ministry has misunderstood the aims of media literacy, and are promoting computer literacy and the teaching of computer skills.  It's because they're not thinking of it as a question of culture, or people's lives, but as a matter of "hard" technology..."
Japan's Highest Artform — Sei Keiko with a reprise on Japanese TV commercials:
"CMs, like the products they sell, must be total packages — pre-processed, complete and fast-acting.  There is only one choice here: keep the TV on or turn it off.  It’s all or nothing.  Besides, what other common topics are 100 million "average" people going to have to talk about anyway?"
Shooting on a Shoestring: Big studios upstaged by Japan's young producers — by Brice Pedroletti (reprinted from the Unesco Courier)
More Animated than Life — Sato Kenji on anime (new, extended version):
"... if anime is perceived as more real (i.e, closer to physical  reality) than live-action,  this means that, increasingly, anime embodies the Japanese consciousness of reality..."
Reel Life & Real Life —Filmmaker Regge Life on intercultural identity, interviewed by Stewart Wachs:
"I realized that the charm of the Tora-san films, of that whole film crew, was this effort to make it authentic. It was not this heightened, larger-than-life thing. It was real life in shitamachi, in the community. And I realized that in American filmmaking we really don’t have anything like this..."

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