Image Journeys

The discourse on media and cultural change in India has largely revolved around direct impact theory supplemented by anecdotal reportage or heavily empirical approaches. While not denying the legitimacy of such debates, this volume provides a different perspective regarding cultural change and the influence of audio-visual media in India. The contributors view media as not only a means of communication or a mode of dissemination, but as an ecology of images and culture which comprises a network of various connected activities including the constitution of communities and the construction of social order. The predominant theme is the movement of images within a field of media production in an age when economic liberalisation and the development of new technology and infrastructure in India have resulted in the creation of new permutations of images and agency, form and content. Located in their own networks, producers and audiences of these images have propelled them into new spheres. Against this background, this volume explores a variety of topics including the impact of audio-visual media from both global and local perspectives; the creation and reflection of identities; the construction of icons, memory and imagination; and points of resistance. Among the other issues covered are the portrayal of class, arcadia and utopia in Hindi films; Doordarshan as a representative state media; the ‘packaging’ of cultural nationalism; sex, sexuality and censorship; and cable TV and the ‘invasion from the skies’. Comprising original essays by an unusually varied group–including film-makers, journalists and scholars from a wide range of disciplines–and written in a very accessible manner, this exploration of contemporary developments in cultural change and the media in India will interest media professionals, sociologists, anthropologists, and those in the fields of cultural and media studies.