Networked Bollywood

Networked Bollywood provides interdisciplinary analysis of the role of the stars in the transformation of Hindi cinema into a global entertainment industry. The first Indian film was made in 1913. However, filmmaking was recognized as an industry almost a hundred years later. Yet, Indian films have been circulating globally since their inception. This book unearths this oft-elided history of Bollywood's globalization through multilingual, transnational research and discursive cultural analysis. The author illustrates how over the decades, a handful of primarily male megastars, as the heads of the industry's most prominent productions and corporations, combined overwhelming charismatic affect with unparalleled business influence. Through their “star switching power,” theorized here as a deeply gendered phenomenon and manifesting broader social inequalities, India's most prominent stars instigated new flows of cinema, industrial collaborations, structured distinctive business models, influenced state policy and diplomatic exchange, thereby defining the future of Bollywood's globalization.

This book is a collection of incisive articles on the interactions between Indian Popular Cinema and the political and cultural ideologies of a new post-Global India.

Bollywood movies have long been known for their colorful song-and-dance numbers and knack for combining drama, comedy, action-adventure, and music. But these exciting and often amusing films rarely reflect the reality of life on the Indian subcontinent. Exploring the nature of mainstream Hindi cinema, the strikingly illustrated Bollywood’s Indiaexamines its nonrealistic depictions of everyday life in India and what it reveals about Indian society. Showing how escapism and entertainment function in Bollywood cinema, Rachel Dwyer argues that Hindi cinema’s interpretations of India over the last two decades are a reliable guide to understanding the nation’s changing hopes and dreams. She looks at the ways Bollywood has imagined and portrayed the unity and diversity of the country—what it believes and feels, as well as life at home and in public. Using Dwyer’s two decades spent working with filmmakers and discussing movies with critics and moviegoers,Bollywood’s India is an illuminating look at Hindi cinema.

Every year, thousands of young men and women come to Mumbai to make it big in Bollywood. They come from all over India. They come from all backgrounds. They all come with one common thing - hope. Starry-eyed, they land in Mumbai and begin a pursuit that will change their lives. Some will make it. Most won't. They know that. They know they are taking a chance, a roll of the dice, a gamble with their own future at stake. They are playing a game of roulette, where the odds are stacked against them; but they also know that the rewards are out of this world.

How maturing digital media and network technologies are transforming place, culture, politics, and infrastructure in our everyday life.

A guidebook to Indian films.

Today, information communication technologies, such as the Internet and World Wide Web, are inextricably woven into the fabric of numerous facets of social and economic development. ""Networked Communities: Strategies for Digital Collaboration"" provides an understanding of best practices in building sustainable collaboration in intelligent community development. This unique collection contains extensive referencing and sophistication in the nature of dealing with communities using information communication technologies - a significant contribution to the field of digital collaboration.