Prime Time Soap Operas On Indian Television

This book examines the phenomenon of prime time soap operas on Indian television. An anthropological insight into social issues and practices of contemporary India through the television, this volume analyzes the production of soaps within India’s cultural fabric. It deconstructs themes and issues surrounding the "everyday" and the "middle class" through the fiction of the "popular". In its second edition, this still remains the only book to examine prime time soap operas on Indian television. Without in any way changing the central arguments of the first edition, it adds an essential introductory chapter tracking the tectonic shifts in the Indian "mediascape" over the past decade – including how the explosion of regional language channels and an era of multiple screens have changed soap viewing forever. Meticulously researched and persuasively argued, the book traces how prime time soaps in India still grab the maximum eyeballs and remain the biggest earners for TV channels. The book will be of interest to students of anthropology and sociology, media and cultural studies, visual culture studies, gender and family studies, and also Asian studies in general. It is also an important resource for media producers, both in content production and television channels, as well as for the general reader.

At least one third of India's billion inhabitants regularly watch Indian soap operas, which have displaced popular cinema as the prime entertainment genre. And in the Indian diaspora on every Continent, Indian soap operas are a feature of life -- a source of pleasure, discussion and shared identity. This book characterizes the forms of these soap operas and relates how they have evolved. It explores how they have contributed to shaping the identity of modern India. Initially developed by the national telecast service, Doordoshan, specifically to convey messages about women's role, contraception and other family issues. Doordoshan also engaged viewers with serializations of the two great epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabarata. But with the onset of cable TV, soap operas became primarily entertainment driven and progressively more sensational. The book traces the impact of these different strands of soap operas and considers their impact on India's dominant concerns: the search for national unity, identity, the changing role of women, and the ideology of consumerism. "Soft Soaping India" is the first book to study Indian televised soap operas in all its forms and will be essential reading for students of the media and sociologists interested in India and its diaspora. It will also be relevant to Women's Studies.

In Once Upon A Prime Time, Ananth Mahadevan pens the memoirs of his journey on Indian television. From first hand experiences with film makers who were the founding fathers of television serials, to today's consumerism driven shows, he has tasted them all. The book reads like an autobiography yet covers virtually every major player who was responsible for the nostalgia that Indian television now evokes. It incorporates exclusive moments with many celebrities and award winning directors. Join the actors on their sets as they perform for television and learn about the stories that made the shows come to life. Covering artistes and makers who impacted our world, such as Amitabh Bachchan, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Sai Paranjpye, Basu Chatterjee, Kundan Shah, Ravi Chopra, Ramesh Sippy , Farooque Shaikh, Aziz Mirza, Gulzar and Govind Nihalani. The book is in all probability, the first ever story of Indian television. Besides taking one down memory lane, this could be a throwback for all those connected with the medium, past and present. It gives you a feeling of travelling through time and watching history being made – behind the scenes. "The book reads like an autobiography, but covers every major player who was responsible for the nostalgia that Indian television now evokes." - Hema Malini

The soap opera, one of U.S. television’s longest-running and most influential formats, is on the brink. Declining ratings have been attributed to an increasing number of women working outside the home and to an intensifying competition for viewers’ attention from cable and the Internet. Yet, soaps’ influence has expanded, with serial narratives becoming commonplace on most prime time TV programs. The Survival of Soap Opera investigates the causes of their dwindling popularity, describes their impact on TV and new media culture, and gleans lessons from their complex history for twenty-first-century media industries. The book contains contributions from established soap scholars such as Robert C. Allen, Louise Spence, Nancy Baym, and Horace Newcomb, along with essays and interviews by emerging scholars, fans and Web site moderators, and soap opera producers, writers, and actors from ABC’s General Hospital, CBS’s The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful, and other shows. This diverse group of voices seeks to intervene in the discussion about the fate of soap operas at a critical juncture, and speaks to longtime soap viewers, television studies scholars, and media professionals alike.

This significant book is based on intensive fieldwork in Korba, a little known multi-project industrial area in Chhattisgarh. It describes the impact of piecemeal industrial development, and its consequent environmental degradation on the lives of the original inhabitants of the region./-//-/This timely and thought-provoking book about the impact of multiple industrial projects on the environment and on the lives of the local people questions the concept of ‘development’ that benefits a few at the cost of many.

Media, War and Terrorism analyses, for the first time, responses to the events of 9/11 and it's repercussions from the point of view of Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Perhaps controversially, the contributors argue that while the US, and to an extent European, media seems largely unified in their coverage and silence in public debate of the events surrounding the attacks on the World Trade Centre, there exists open, critical debate in other parts of the world. By examining the use of media as an instrument of warfare and analyzing the construction of public opinion in mediated electronic warfare, this book clearly shows the difference in perspectives between public opinion in the US and the rest of the world. Moving away from popular assumptions that societies in the West are democratic and progressive and those in the Middle East and Asia are either authoritarian or under-developed, this examination of the media in those countries suggests the exact opposite. In combining an examination of the general, theoretical issues concerning the use of the media as an instrument of warfare with rich, geographically diverse case studies, the editors are able to provide a diverse and intriguing analysis of the impact and inter-connectedness of national and global medias. Bringing together contributions from academics, journalists and media practioners from all over the world, Media, War and Terrorism is an essential read for all of those seeking an informed, non-Western perspective on the events following 9/11.