Cultural Adaptation of Reality TV Formats and Social Cultural Change
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© COPYRIGHT by Lauhona Ganguly 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE CULTURAL SWAY OF THE MARKET: CULTURAL ADAPTATION OF REALITY TV FORMATS AND SOCIAL-CULTURAL CHANGE IN INDIA Lauhona Ganguly ABSTRACT As thousands crowd at audition sites and millions watch and vote, reality TV shows in India offer dramatic tales of transformation for those willing to take a chance, be ambitious, compete and (possibly) win. This dissertation focuses on the re-production of globally circulated formats of reality TV shows in India and asks: what are the narratives of reality, participation and change embedded in the global formats and what are the terms of cultural translation? The study illustrates the integration of the Indian television industry with transnational television industrial flows and mechanisms exemplified by practices of reality TV format adaptation. Research involves production ethnography, including embedded, non-participant observations of reality TV format re- production practices in Mumbai’s television studios and in-depth interviews with domestic and global industry professionals. In particular, observations from the making of three shows (Who Wants to be a Millionaire-Kaun Banega Crorepati; Pop Idol-Indian Idol; Celebrity Sleepover-Desi Girl) inform analysis; along with empirical material gathered from secondary data. The concept of “performative encounters” proposed in this study facilitates a theoretical framework that highlights the dynamics between social power (both material and ideational) and practices: illustrating the structured encounters and industrial logics introduced by transnational television as it reshapes the conditions and practices of cultural production and the scripted norms imported via reality TV formats, while alerting us to the performative stances and gestures deployed in the i creative agency and localized cultural practices of format adaptation by Indian producers. Analysis reveals how thematic emphasis on competition, individualism, ambition and self-management skills embedded in reality TV shows signal the cultural sway of the market in post-liberalized India. But the focus on practices of cultural translation and television production also demonstrates, crucially, how global capital and media forces contend with different social, historical and cultural actors, perceptions and practices in different settings – revealing the multiple realities of living in a neo-liberal global economy. In contrast to textual readings of reality TV’s ideological underpinnings or structural analysis of global capitalism and its cultural impact, this study offers industry and production ethnographic research and integrates political-economic approaches to cultural analysis. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has undergone a long-winding journey, often interrupted by life and its surprises, and then lurching ahead again. I am grateful to my committee for enduring this process; for their patience in letting me find my way forward. Dr. Marwan Kraidy has been an immense influence, in shaping my thoughts and in illustrating with his writings what to aspire to. Conversations I have had with him long time ago sustain me till date. I will always be indebted to Dr. Arvind Rajagopal for his careful reading, for steering me with his insightful comments and for always responding to calls for help. And, I am, and will always remain, grateful to Dr. Shalini Venturelli, the chair of my doctoral dissertation committee; for her guidance, understanding and for all the big and small things she has done to make this dissertation possible. A special word of gratitude is owed to Vibodh Parthasarathy, who helped me think through – and remember to enjoy the thinking process; who reminded me of the importance of following the empirics, pointed out many problems and many more potential problems. I will be eternally thankful to him for his generosity with time, for sharing his insights and for helping me develop this dissertation. I attended many conferences and workshops during the course of the dissertation that helped fashion my thoughts, interests and writing. I owe a special gratitude to incisive comments I received from Dr. Sarah Banet-Weiser, Dr. Trevor Perry Giles, Dr. Alison Trope at the National Communication Association’s Doctoral Honors Seminar (2012) and from Dr. K. Sivaramakrishnan, Dr. Madhavi Murthy and Dr. Sana Haroon at the Yale Modern South Asia workshop. I also owe a special gratitude to Dr. Nicolas Guilhot who encouraged me, at a critical moment, to find my “voice” and remember that iii it is “my” project. Many other conversations have helped, and though impossible to list here, I can only say those conversations kept this dissertation alive. I also owe a tremendous gratitude to all the television executives and producers who made time for me out of their crushingly busy schedules, answered my questions patiently, put me in touch with relevant people and places, allowed me in and then made room for me in tiny editing rooms; I am eternally grateful to production crews who offered me lunch and remembered to ask if I had eaten, had a cup of tea or had a ride back home from distant production locations; to the contestants I met on production sites who shared their deeply personal fears and their fight for their professional dreams with me; for all the small and big acts of kindness and camaraderie. I would also like to thank Peter Hutton who has appeared and reappeared in my life to offer support at critical junctures, set me forth on thrilling fieldwork discoveries and made the impossibly stuck situation in my pre-fieldwork days, as I scrambled to get permission to do production ethnography, into a magically easy journey. Many friends have helped. Vinay Mishra would find the formal gesture of saying “thank you” odd and I offer none to him. But his friendship has meant everything to me, making me feel (when I needed it most) that I must have done something right in life to have a friend as him. Harsh Rohatgi, who unhesitatingly and unquestioningly responded to calls for help and then helped some more. Pallavi Rohatgi, who remains skeptical of intellectual and academic enterprises such as this dissertation but has always been unfailingly indulgent as only a friend can be – putting me in contact with numerous people in the Mumbai media industry. iv Prashant Dua, who has always been a caring, enthusiastic and supportive friend; who helped me connect with “the right people” (as he put it) in the industry; and made my trips “home” to India fun, despite the tensions of fieldwork, as only a childhood friend like him can. And lastly, though they have always been there for me first and foremost, I am grateful to my family; to Dada (Lohit Ganguly), my brother, who selflessly invested his time to help his little sister, cut out newspaper clippings, found relevant materials, pointed me to important conversations in the public sphere and always kept me connected to “affairs at home”; and to my Ma (Adity Ganguly) for, well, what can I say, for everything: for giving life and then keeping me alive, physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. This dissertation however simply would not have been possible without one person: Skippy or as he is sometimes called Matthew Joseph Chmiel. He has been my partner and comrade in every way possible and beyond, sustaining me, and the completion of this dissertation, against all odds. But more essentially, it is the spirit of intellectual adventure and creative fulfillment that I sought when I started this dissertation that he understood, protected and nourished, sometimes despite myself! I dedicate this dissertation to him. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………….………i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………..iii LIST OF TABLES/ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………………...viii CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………1 Locating reality TV Formats in India………………………………………….9 Reality TV and (Neo-Liberal) Imaginaries in India………………………….12 Structure and Agency in Global Cultural Economy………………………….18 Chapters…...………………………………………………………………….23 II. LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………………………………………..29 Reality TV: Representational And Participatory Spaces…………………….30 Genre Definitions and Hybrid Texts…………………………….30 Reality Production, as Real or Produced………………………..36 Community, Common Sense and Participation…………………41 Television Formats: Technologies of Exchange and Cultural Production…...47 Encoding-Decoding in National and Transnational Spaces………………….54 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………58 III. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK…………………………………………………...61 Television and Social Life……………………………………………………62 Practice and Power……………………………………………………………66 Practice, Power and Transnational Media Systems…………………………..71 Conclusion: Practice and Power in Performative Encounters………………..76 IV. METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK…………………………………………….82 Phases and Stages of Analysis………………………………………………...84 Selection of Specific Reality TV Shows……………………………………...93 Research Plan for Data Collection……………………………………………98 Methods of Data Collection…………………………………….99 Positionality……………………………………………………103 Data Collection Days………………………………………………………..106 V. MARKETS AND “MINDSETS”: THE SOCIAL LIFE OF TELEVISION IN INDIA…………………………………………………………..………………..111 Television’s Entry and Expansion in India………………………………….112 Television’s National Reach and Entry of Market Forces…….112 Market Reforms and Entry of Transnational C&S Television Networks………………………………………………………117 C&S Television and its Growth Trajectory……………………122 Impact of “Last Mile” on the Market and