Commodifying Asian-ness: entrepreneurship and the making of East Asian popular culture

This article examines the linkage between entrepreneurship and the making of popular culture in East Asia. The central argument presented here is that the notion of entrepreneurship is central for understanding and conceptualizing the process of constructing trans-national markets for popular culture and for building new circles of 'Asian' recognition. In other words, entrepreneurial vision is not only transforming the local cultural markets by underpinning a region-wide cultural production system but also un-intentionally spurring feelings of 'Asian' sameness. The study itself focuses on four cases of entrepreneurship which exemplify the driving forces and the intended and unintended consequences of entrepreneurship, and outlines the wider theoretical and methodological implications for this concept by defining the relations between structural determinism and human agency in popular culture.