Their quality can be a lot lower. Nonetheless they are certainly worth looking at and can be very entertaining and informative as well. On how to subscribe you must check your News program. The WWW browser Netscape has a facility to read Newsgroups as well but you will have to know the name of the Newsgroup and then subscribe to it. A mailing list is a discussion group that communicates entirely by e-mail.
Most mailing lists have an academic origin.
They are either unmoderated or moderated. Moderated means that all the mailing to the list is checked by an editor or editors. Most mailing lists are accessible to anyone who wishes to subscribe. You might have to verify your own e-mail account when you subscribe. Below is an inventory of mailing lists concerning Asian Studies.