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The exponential growth of television news in India – from one state controlled network until 1991 to more than 100 news channels in 2012 – has transformed broadcast journalism in the country. This proliferation of news networks has intensified competition for audience and advertising revenue, leading to excessive marketization of news, which increasingly veers toward infotainment. The chapter examines the challenges faced by Indian television news – focusing on economic and political dimensions of television news - and its implications for the world’s largest democracy.

Beneath many instances of ’sweeping’ change, both structural and representational, in the market-dominant, liberalized and privatized Indian televisual scenario there lies a hidden transcript of continuity insofar as the encoding of development issues, images and messages is concerned. In the periods of Doordarshan and later corporate channels, though with markedly different historical contexts, reference points, contents and styles — the encoding of ’development’ leaves little autonomy to the audiences. In a political slant indicating how the two televisual periods converge in contracting the space for public debate and civic engagement the essay seeks to make a departure from the dominant view which puts them in binary positions.

This chapter critically evaluates changing definitions of ‘public’ in Indian television in relation to discourses of globalization and media privatization. It examines the debate over the nationalist agenda of public broadcasting in India in relation to the demands for alternative models of broadcasting, and the rise of private commercial satellite channels since the 1990s. It also discusses how representations of traditionally private desires of sexuality and intimacy in soap operas, reality TV shows and music television are redefining the public in India. It outlines the ways in which private desire is made visible — and thus made public — through the convergence of the television screen, the cinematic screen, the computer screen, and the mobile screen. It argues that binaries of ‘public’ versus ‘private’ force us into either/or debates even though such category systems are always-already hybrid in postcolonial societies such as India.

The chapter argues that Paul Ricouer’s hermeneutics offers a way forward in examining not only the ideological and narrative structures of television, but also particular modalities through which viewers appropriate and interpret televisual texts. To this end, the chapter shall sketch an analytic framework by bringing together Ricoeur’s hermeneutic philosophy, particularly his concepts of narrative identity and temporality, and the notion of social imaginaries developed by postcolonial theory in a productive dialogue. Ricoeur’s hermeneutics presents an understanding of the human subject in terms of an embodied subjectivity that takes us beyond singular conceptions of identity, whether in terms of the abstract Cartesian subject, or various other discourse-centred theorizations of subject. The chapter demonstrates that the notion of embodied subjectivity and social imaginaries enable a better grasp in examining the articulations of class, caste, gender, and religious identities on Indian television.

This chapter sketches a theoretical framework for analyzing the role of television in the temporal and affective organization of everyday life. Rather than engage an empirical analysis of the “impact” of television, the chapter aims to raise conceptual questions about how satellite television participates in the creation of regimes of affect and temporality. Diverging from theories of transnational media that foreground the ubiquity of spatiality, it proposes that we examine how duree and histoire, historical consciousness and the everyday are co-constructed through the affectivity of television. The chapter begins by examining the work of television news in the production of crisis; it analyses how television enables the formation of historical consciousness; and it points to the ways in which television participates in the creation of a sense of the everyday. It thus outlines some of the ways that we can theorize the centrality of television to the production of temporalities of historicity, contemporaneity, and futurity.

This chapter locates India, and broadly the post-colonial context, within the larger debates concerning television’s audiovisual form and mode of address. It tries to demonstrate that certain key traits in Indian popular performative traditions, representing an ‘alternative’ negotiation with modernity, are somewhat homologous with what western theorists have tried to specify (though in contradicting terms) as the features of televisual mode of address and ‘flow’. The chapter reads the specific imports of this correspondence in histories of Indian television with special reference to a somewhat novel way television has started imagining the nation after liberalization. The significance of the Indian popular film form as lending a major legacy to tele-viewership in India constitutes a major strand of argument.

In the eyes of many observers the Philippine cultural icon that is synonymous with travel, as well as being the subject of numerous advertisements is the jeepney, a public-transport vehicle assembled in the style of the US military jeep but lengthened to accommodate from fourteen to twenty-two sitting passengers. What distinguishes the jeepney from run-of-the-mill public transport however is its artistic décor: a clutter and kaleidoscope of various artefacts from miniature steel horses dotting the hood, to massive, jazzy plastic or steel billboards announcing the name of the jeepney, to murals painted in fiesta colours at the sides, to a bizarre combination of items in the front windshield juxtaposing conflicting images of the Sto. Nino (the baby Jesus Christ) and stickers with sexually risqué messages.

From time to time certain television shows ‘stop the nation’. In 2002 the localized version of the Celador licensed format2 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? glued over a third of Indonesian television households to their screens at 7pm on Saturday nights.3 Is it the vicarious thrill of winning undreamed-of riches in a country which has been the slowest to recover from the Asian economic crisis of 1997 that attracts the audience? Circuses without bread? Perhaps, but this phenomenon is probably not profoundly related to local matters. We need look no further than the thin, phosphor coated screen. Millionaire, as it is referred to in television circles in Jakarta, is entertaining television. As other chapters testify, it has wowed viewers in countries in very varied economic circumstances. Millionaire is just one of a number of quiz and game show formats screening across all channels in Indonesia and is representative of the core business of international format providers in Indonesia which has been growing steadily since 1994.

Why is the hit Singapore edition of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? must-see TV?1. Watch it so that you can hold the ‘hottest topic’ with your friends. 2. So you can be encouraged by the courage of some contestants who are bold enough to brave national TV when apparently they have not read enough. 3. So you can judge for yourself if you are bold (and knowledgeable) enough to brave national TV for your possible 1st million. 4. So you can call the number on screen and make your 1st million. 5. Finally, watch it to see for yourself that Singaporeans are not as well read and as globalized as we all think we are.

Unlike smaller nation-states in this study the People’s Republic of China has never really countenanced a scarcity of domestic television content. Supply has been constant, indicating both the importance and the sheer size of the sector. The nationalized broadcast media has for several decades churned out cheaply produced films, documentaries, dramas, and news programmes. During the last two decades of the twentieth century, however, audience demand for domestic content began to wane as more as more international programmes found their way into schedules, particularly in southern China. China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001 seemed to herald soul-searching among its media mandarins. What would happen? Would China be inundated by foreign content (the worst case scenario) or would China, as it has done over time, absorb and regulate foreign influences?

Taiwan residents enjoy one of the most abundant television diets in East Asia. Eighty per cent of households subscribe to cable television services, offering a buffet of more than eighty channels including niche and full service channels. Taiwan’s television industry, while relatively small in comparison with its competitors in East Asia, has established a reputation for creatively re-generating formats developed elsewhere.

Television has been called ‘a Western-originated project’ (Barker 1997: 5) and an institution of Western capitalist modernity. The global circulation of Western-centred, or more specifically, American-centred cultural products, contributes to the formation and dissemination of a global shared culture that reaches across the boundaries of nation-states. In the process American cultural products play a role in the formation of local television cultures.

In March 2001 a Japanese newspaper report entitled ‘Indians are addicted to a quiz show’ drew attention to a phenomenally popular television programme in India – a quiz show that attracts millions of viewers in which challengers strive to win prize money (Asahi Shinbun 2001). What was particularly eye-catching for the journalist was the profligately decorated studio set located in Mumbai (Bombay) and the caring guidance of the MC, a film star famous in India. The name of the show, as you might have already inferred, was Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?.

The previous chapter introduced in broad brushstrokes the issues at stake in this study, beginning with a critique of globalization and moving on to sketch in finer detail national television systems, the role of local content, and the economic importance of formats. The chapter concluded with a brief overview of the vagaries of copyright law as it applies to formats. Here, we initiate a discussion of Asian television systems beginning with a much different perspective on the ramifications of cultural borrowing. In this context we note that the format business straddles the divide between creative endeavour and innovation on the one hand, and slavish imitation on the other. This polarization manifests in widespread misunderstanding of the goals of format producers and distributors, and the role that formats play in the shaping of television schedules. We need therefore to flesh out the in-between issues. These are primarily concerned with the relationship between the format and its localization, television consumption within ‘cultural continents’, and changes in media systems. Taking this further we note the relationship between production and reception within Asia, the growth of television industries in the region and the relationship between formatting and new media distribution platforms that use interactive technologies allowing viewers to feedback responses. This exercise enables us to identify an alternative list of conceptual tools to those championed by political economy scholars.

Animation allows for the creation of mediatic spaces that strengthen prevailing ideologies of masculinity and femininity. Manhood seems to operate as a key point of reference in the creation of televised animation across Latin America, especially by elevating certain heroic cultural narratives. Through a review of 21 television series, produced between 2008 and 2018, this chapter examines the portrayals of femininity and masculinity in some of the most widely broadcast animated series from the region. As a norm, Latin American illustrators adhere to the tradition of depicting female figures as secondary characters, as leading characters with a certain degree of autonomy, or as subaltern, considerate, and supportive figures. By contrast, male figures are portrayed as strong, daring, independent, and primary characters, often destined to lead their families and communities, and save their weaker friends that are typically female characters.

This chapter historicises and contextualises the evolution, production, and development of key Mexican screen melodramas over fifty-two years to understand and mediate Mexico’s ambivalence around socioeconomic background, ranother. Perhaps if Televisa had allowed its various ace and religion, gender and worth, family and duty. The chapter demonstrates the importance of localised scholarly inquiry into Mexican audiovisual media that considers not only narrative discourses, content and textual analyses, but also industrial records and practices, marketing campaigns and press releases, archival research and interviews, multimedia synergy, and comparative analysis. For some time, research on Mexican melodrama has had a strong social focus, with several writings about audience engagement, but it is imperative to have more close readings of the texts themselves to understand their cultural context and industrial histories. This research exposes societal changes within Mexico by utilising one of its most omnipresent forms of popular culture and provides a deeper understanding of Mexico’s primary media productions through the use of genre and remake theory. The representations of young women yield a multitude of tensions and ambiguities placed upon Mexican women, which reveal volumes about wider sociocultural expectations.

This chapter explores the ways in which the portrayal of children in Palestinian screen content compares with the positioning of children in leading pan-Arab children’s channels. Using critical discourse analysis, it compares the definition and representation of childhood in three Arabic language texts (two magazine shows and one animation), and examines the ways in which the texts construct narratives of childhood and whether they reproduce or challenge hegemonic definitions of childhood. The chapter analyses the language used to address the child audience and the ways in which adult–child relations are depicted. The chapter concludes that while there are some characteristics unique to Palestinian programming, the positioning of children and the “modes of address” are similar in all three programmes, and there are common assumptions and idealizations of childhood. However, there is some evidence that the Emirati animation analysed challenges dominant (adult-generated) definitions of childhood present in Arab societies by presenting childhood as a dynamic space of empowerment

Gender and the contemporary audio-visual landscape of Mexico.

This book seeks to interrogate the representation of Black women in television. Cheers explores how the increase of Black women in media ownership and creative executive roles (producers, showrunners, directors and writers) in the last 30 years affected the fundamental cultural shift in Black women’s representation on television, which in turn parallels the political, social, economic and cultural advancements of Black women in America from 1950 to 2016. She also examines Black women as a diverse television audience, discussing how they interact and respond to the constantly evolving television representation of their image and likeness, looking specifically at how social media is used as a tool of audience engagement.

"This book considers the changing nature of intimacy in contemporary China, providing a unique case study of romantic subjectivities in young people in the world's fastest growing economy. Since the implementation of reform in 1978, the economic and socio-cultural environment of modern China has experienced a dramatic transformation under the influence of urbanization and globalization, facilitating more individualized identity among Chinese youth. This book bridges the gap between an emergent emphasis on individualisation and the country's traditional norms and values. It focuses on young people's understandings of various forms of relationships such as cohabitation, extramarital relationships and multiple relationships, suggesting a challenge to traditional familial values and an increasingly diversified understanding of the concepts of love and romance. By examining the formation of relationships among 21st century Chinese youth, notably through the lens of popular Chinese TV dating programs, this book considers how dating and relationships mirror China's changing societal structure and examines social and cultural transformations in Chinese society."