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Mobile Phones and Changing Media Consumption

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Mobile Phones and Changing Media Consumption MOBILE PHONES AND C HA N G IN G M E D IA CONSUMPTION PRACTICE S IN BANGALORE A THESIS TO BE SUBMITTED TO MANIPAL ACADEMY OF HIGHER EDUCATION FOR FULFILLMENT OF T HE REQUIREMENT FOR T HE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY RASHMI M. Reg is tra tion Numbe r 149 001 014 UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF PROF. CAROL UPADHYA SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES BANGALORE, INDIA DECEMBER 2018 Table of Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................................................ i Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. ii INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ .1 Parallel or mainstream digital? ....................................................................................................... 4 Structure of the thesis ..................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 1. BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY ............................................................ 8 Phone studies ................................................................................................................................... 8 Digitization, media convergence, and mobile phones .............................................................. 11 Mobile phones and the ICT4D debate ....................................................................................... 12 Objectives and research questions .............................................................................................. 16 Research questions .................................................................................................................... 17 Research methodology .................................................................................................................. 19 Theoretical orientation ............................................................................................................. 20 Conceptualizing and mapping the field ................................................................................. 21 Database ..................................................................................................................................... 28 Methodological complexities and challenges ........................................................................ 30 Chapter 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE: SOCIALITY, INFORMALITY AND ACCUMULATION .......................................................................................................................... 32 Two Streams of Enquiry: Techno-sociality and Sociality of Technology ............................. 34 Access through use ................................................................................................................... 36 Distinction of users based on access ...................................................................................... 38 Informality and Media Infrastructure ......................................................................................... 41 Piracy: Access by proxy? .......................................................................................................... 42 Bangalore and informality of digital media use ..................................................................... 46 Accumulation: Theorizing Digital Media and the Production of Value ................................ 47 Mobile phones as access points to media infrastructure ..................................................... 47 Capitalism and ICTs: Conceptual differences and terminological shifts .......................... 51 Capitalist accumulation and value generation with digital media technologies ................ 55 Digital variant of capitalism and distribution of information goods ................................. 57 Chapter 3. THE DIGITALLY MARGINALIZED .................................................................... 62 The Urban Service Economy: Work and Media ....................................................................... 63 Transport workers ..................................................................................................................... 66 Hotel and restaurant staff ........................................................................................................ 75 Security guards ........................................................................................................................... 80 Street vendors ............................................................................................................................ 85 Domestic workers and housekeeping staff............................................................................ 87 Leisure and Media .......................................................................................................................... 88 Sociality of mobile multimedia consumption........................................................................ 92 Mobile media practices in the changing urban context ....................................................... 93 Chapter 4. THE INFORMAL OFFLINE MEDIA ECONOMY IN BANGALORE ......... 96 Mapping the digital offline economy .......................................................................................... 96 Media economies and informal distribution networks ........................................................ 99 Mobile phone shops of the neighbourhood ........................................................................... 101 Extra-legal multimedia content business ............................................................................. 103 The pedagogical function of mobile phone shops ............................................................. 108 Evolution of informal media markets in Bangalore .............................................................. 111 Changing materiality of exchange of media content .......................................................... 113 Chapter 5. CONTENT – CONSUMPTION COMMODITIZED ........................................ 115 Content as an Information Good and Commodity ............................................................... 117 Value and information goods ................................................................................................ 119 The lifecycle of digital multimedia content ......................................................................... 121 Distribution in the life cycle of content ............................................................................... 122 New Age Practices: Content Production, Distribution, and Consumption ....................... 124 Extraction of value through property rights ....................................................................... 129 Consumption Commoditized ................................................................................................... 142 From prosumption to extraction of value based on property rights ............................... 143 Transformations within content industry ............................................................................ 149 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 151 In summary .................................................................................................................................. 157 APPENDIX: DATABASE ............................................................................................................ 159 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................ 161 List of Figures Figure 1. Micro-SD card used to store multimedia content on mobile phones ................ 70 Figure 2. Audio jack connection cable to connect mobile phones to sound amplifier .... 70 Figure 3. Simple MP3 player with USB, FM radio, and an option for audio jack ............. 71 Figure 4. Cheap USB micro-SD card readers which can be used as pen drives ................ 71 Figure 5. Mobile phone shop front ........................................................................................ 102 Figure 6. Mobile phone accessories business ........................................................................ 102 Figure 7. Mobile phone services and accessories with retail goods business ................... 103 Figure 8. Home page of a Kannada distribution company YouTube channel ................ 133 Figure 9. Full length movie upload by a Kannada distribution company ......................... 134 Figure 10. YouTube channel monetization ........................................................................... 134 Figure 11. Google AdSense account ...................................................................................... 134 Figure 12. Homepage of a multichannel network, Shemaroo, on YouTube ................... 136 Figure 13. Content on other web platforms linked from YouTube .................................. 138 Figure 14. Links to caller tune and ring tones from YouTube ........................................... 139 Figure 15. Chart showing market share of content industry .............................................. 141 i Acknowledgements This work has been supported by many individuals and institutions.
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