Screening Culture, Viewing Politics

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In Screening Culture, Viewing Politics, Purnima Mankekar presents an ethnography of television-viewing in India, focusing on the responses of upwardly-mobile, lower-to-middle class urban women to state-sponsored entertainment serials. Mankekar illustrates how television has significantly influenced women's roles within the family, community, and nation, impacting class, caste, consumption, religion, and politics. She analyzes both entertainment narratives and advertisements that convey specific national ideas, organizing her study around themes such as Indian womanhood, family, community, historical memory, development, integration, and violence. Mankekar dissects the messages broadcasted and her subjects' perceptions and reactions, revealing the complexities of their daily lives, social relationships, and practices. She remains aware of the historical and political context in which these integrationalist messages are shared, the cultural diversity of the audience, and her role as an ethnographer. An enlightening epilogue discusses the impact of satellite television and transnational programming in the 1990s. Through its rich ethnographic and theoretical insights, this work prompts a reexamination of the connections between mass media, social life, and identity formation in non-Western settings, making a significant contribution to various fields, including media studies, feminist studies, anthropology, South Asian studies, an