Globalising Lifestyles? modernity, identity, culture and life advice programming in Asia | Tania Lewis

Summary: In this paper I provide an introduction to a large, team-based ARC project, which examines lifestyle TV in China, India, Taiwan and Singapore. Lifestyle programming in Asia includes a range of popular factual formats, from cooking and health shows to reality-style make-over shows and consumer advice programmes. What unites these shows, from Singapore's highly popular Home Decor Survivor to the Indian version of MasterChef, is their concern with instructing their audiences in 'good taste', aesthetics and everyday life skills while often showcasing the latest consumer products. These increasingly ubiquitous forms of advice television thus offer a useful lens through which to examine emergent social and cultural identities in the region. Drawing upon a 'multiple modernities' approach, this paper examines the kinds of cultural values and modes of selfhood promoted on these shows, foregrounding the way in which television can be seen to model forms of lifestyle that are shaped by local, national, regional and global influences.