Globalization and the Public Cartographies of Vietnam Idol, Long Bui

In “Globalization and the Public Cartographies of Vietnam Idol.” (112), Long Bui talks about Vietnam idol, the Vietnamese version of reality television singing shows. I thought this article was a great example of cultural consumption, but also had some great commentary about youth in media, gender norms in mass culture, and the power of an audience. The article uses the case study of Vietnam idol to talk about how Vietnam is an industrializing and liberalizing economy which is allowing for idol to come to popularity. I thought it was interesting how this article takes the concept of mass culture, and the concept of cultural consumption of media, and then uses this case study to combine the two to analyze mass media consumed by a culture. Another interesting piece of the text was when the author was describing how Vietnam idol is different from the other idol shows in different countries because it is in the context of a different culture, with a different type of audience and participant.