Screening culture, viewing politics : an ethnography of television, womanhood, and nation in postcolonial India / Purnima Mankekar.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mankekar, Purnima, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Television broadcasting--Social aspects--India.

Television broadcasting.

Television programs--India.

Television programs.

Television in community development--India.

Television in community development.

Television and women--India.

Television and women.

Television in politics--India.

Television in politics.

Television broadcasting--Social aspects.

India.

Physical Description:

xiii, 429 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 1999.

Summary:

In Screening Culture, Viewing Politics Purnima Mankekar presents a cutting-edge ethnography of television-viewing in India. With a focus on the responses of upwardly-mobile, yet lower-to-middle class urban women to state-sponsored entertainment serials, Mankekar demonstrates how television in India has profoundly shaped women's place in the family, community, and nation, and the crucial role it has played in the realignment of class, caste, consumption, religion, and politics.

Mankekar examines both "entertainment" narratives and advertisements designed to convey particular ideas about the nation. Organizing her study around the recurring themes in these ads and shows -- Indian womanhood, family, community, constructions of historical memory, development, integration, and sometimes violence -- Mankekar dissects both the messages televised and her New Delhi subjects' perceptions of and reactions to these messages. In the process, she presents anecdotes and dialogue that reveal the texture of these women's daily lives, social relationships, and everyday practices. Throughout her study, Mankekar remains attentive to the tumultuous historical and political context in the midst of which these programs' integrationalist messages are transmitted, to the cultural diversity of the viewership, and to her own role as ethnographer. In an enlightening epilogue she describes the effect of satellite television and transnational programming on India in the 1990s.

Through its ethnographic and theoretical richness, Screening Culture, Viewing Politics forces a reexamination of the relationship between mass media, social life, and identity and nation formation in non-Western contexts. As such, itrepresents a major contribution to a number of fields, including media and communication studies, feminist studies, anthropology, South Asian studies, and cultural studies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [395]-415) and index.

ISBN:

0822323575

0822323907

OCLC:

40821119