From global to neo-global: Mapping the ‘tele’-visual geography of South Asia through a transnational lens

Abstract

Globalization and transnationalism have expanded the physical ter-ritory of television and are responsible for global reshaping of media industries and cultures. In the contemporary mediascape, Indian television industry is an interesting site for excavating new transna-tional patterns wherein the circulation of Indian TV content extends beyond the diaspora and caters to non-diasporic audiences, espe-cially, in South Asia and South-east Asia. The popularity of Hindi language TV soaps in Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, etc., have aided in mapping a new ‘tele’-visual geography of popular culture that deems Western media influence as almost insignificant, if not absent. Chronicling the success of two Indian TV programmes – the story of a ‘child-bride’ Balika Vadhu (2008–16) in Vietnam and a Hindu mythological Mahabharat (2013–14) in a Muslim- populated Indonesia; this paper traces the transnational circulation of Indian TV content amongst non-diasporic markets in South-east Asia. Drawing from Daya Kishan Thussu’s notion of ‘contra-flows’ and Brian Larkin’s conception of ‘parallel modernities’, the paper argues that the success of Indian television programmes in non-West media markets diverts our attention towards new kinds of transnational media flows which I have termed ‘neo-global’ flows that operate amongst emerging centres of media production and need not be mapped against dominant Western flows.