The Cultural Sway of the Market: Cultural Adaptation of Reality TV Formats and Social Cultural Change in India

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 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.