1st Edition

Television at Large in South Asia

Edited By Aswin Punathambekar, Shanti Kumar Copyright 2014

    This book explores the empirical and theoretical significance of understanding television as a dynamic technology, a creative industry, and a vibrant cultural form that is "at large" in South Asia. Bringing together prominent scholars who have shaped television studies in South Asia, as well as emerging scholars who address new topics, this book decisively positions television as a key site in the study of South Asian History and Culture. In doing so, it also positions the study of television in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora as crucial in the rethinking of global television history and opens up new directions for the future of television studies. This volume will be essential reading for scholars and teachers of media and communication studies, media history, anthropology, and sociology, besides being of great interest to policymakers and media professionals.

    This book was originally published as a special issue of South Asian History and Culture.

    Introduction: Television at large Aswin Punathambekar and Shanti Kumar

    1. Changing with The Times of India (Bangalore): remaking a post-political media field Sahana Udupa and Paula Chakravartty

    2. At the limits of discourse: political talk in drag on Late Night Show with Begum Nawazish Ali Mobina Hashmi

    3. The fatal snare of proximity: live television, new media and the witnessing of the Mumbai attacks Sangeet Kumar

    4. Mixed signals: MTV Desi, South Asian American audiences and the discourse of ethnic television Madhavi Mallapragada

    5. ‘The show of the millennium’: screening the big-money quiz show and the Bollywood superstar Sreya Mitra

    6. Beyond television studies John Hutnyk

    7. Mapping India’s television landscape: constitutive dimensions and emerging issues Kalyani Chadha and Anandam Kavoori

    8. Television and embodiment: a speculative essay Purnima Mankekar

    9. Ravana’s airforce: a report on the state of Indian television Nalin Mehta

    10. Watching Barkha Dutt: turning on the news in television studies Radhika Parameswaran

    11. A reflexive turn in television studies? Conjectures from South Asia Abhijit Roy

    Biography

    Aswin Punathambekar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and faculty affiliate at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA. He is the author of From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (2013) and co-editor of Global Bollywood (2008).

    Shanti Kumar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Radio-TV-Film and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Asian Studies, the Center for Asian-American Studies and the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas-Austin, USA. He is the author of Gandhi Meets Primetime: Globalization and Nationalism in Indian Television (2006) and co-editor of Planet TV (2003).