India on the Western Screen: Imaging a Country in Film, TV and Digital India

About the Book This book examines the nuances of multiple images-cinema, TV, computer, and smart phones-that feed into the making of a new Indian narrative and showcase an India that is very different from the unilinear notion that used to exist a few decades ago. It elaborates on the critical role of the impressions formed in redefining how the Indian Diaspora is imagined and received in the West, which in turn impacts everyday experiences of the Indians living there.

Building on his earlier book India through the Western Lens: Creating National Images in Film (SAGE 1999), which focused primarily on films, Mitra expands his latest study to new media. Effectively, the book highlights the West's perception of India based on what is being projected through visual media.

About the Author Ananda Mitra is a Professor of Communication at Wake Forest University, teaching courses on new media, India, and research methodology. His publications include a 10-volume series on digital technology and its social impact, a critical examination of the Indian TV series Mahabharat, an examination of the portrayal of India in the Western cinema, a book about the ways in which new digital technologies are increasingly alienated from the users, a book on the cultural issues surrounding the use of social media, and two books on research methodology. Some of these include Digital DNA: Social Networking and You (2014), India through the Western Lens: Creating National Images in Film (SAGE 1999), Alien Technology: Coping with Modern Mysteries (SAGE 2010), and Television and Popular Culture in India: A Study of the Mahabharat (SAGE 1993).

He has consulted with many different industries and is the inventor of the concept of "narbs" that allows for a careful and systematic narrative analysis of the unstructured component of big data that has become available with the growth of social media. He is considered a specialist in analyzing the way in which narratives produce images of people and places, with a special emphasis on representation of Indians across the globe.

Preface The screen is a strange term. It has many meanings and many implications. In the twenty-first century, we are surrounded by screens that bring information to us. For some, a screen, such as the viewing space of the Smartphone, is so much a part of life that some municipalities have thought of creating separate walking paths for those who are glued to their Smartphone screens so that people do not run into each other. Other screens are encountered from the privacy of the home to public spaces where large screens greet people. Some say that the screens of Times Square in New York can be seen from far up in space. This book is about screens; the first part of the book elaborates on screens to offer the reader a sense of what they are and how they operate in the lives of audiences.

Since screens do not operate in the absence of audiences, this book also elaborates on the different kinds of audiences that are exposed to the screens. Given that the book deals particularly with India, the audiences considered here are the ones that are relevant to India in the West. Thus, a good part of the book examines the kinds of audience, especially of Indian origin, who are found in the West and who have to interact with the larger audiences that witness India on the different screens of the West.

Finally, all these screens and audiences make up a system which we are all a part of. Consequently, what happens on the Western screen about India impacts us all, especially if one is an Indian? The book closes with the implications of the images on the screen and offers a theoretical explanation as to why Indians are treated in certain ways by the people of the West. The way India is represented on the Western screen is not merely a matter of curiosity. Instead, this book offers a sense of what to expect out of the representations when two individuals interact with each other within the social sphere created by the images. In other words, what has movies such as Slumdog Millionaire done to how India is perceived globally, or what does the appearance of Priyanka Chopra in the popular American crime thriller Quantico does to Americans thinking of Indians in America?

Book's Contents and Sample Pages