Diasporic audiences and non-resident media: The case of Indian films

Abstract

This article seeks to demonstrate how various overlapping claims made by politicians, film producers and academics regarding diasporic audiences have constructed a particular model of cultural transmission emerging from a globalised mediasphere. Taking the case of popular Indian films and their global circulation, this article goes on to challenge the dominant ethnocultural explanations of popular culture and its circulation. Following a consideration of the empirical and epistemological faultlines arising from that paradigm, it is claimed that the tidy equation of media dispersal with migrant ethnicities is not only problematic in this specific case, but also that it provides for misleading conclusions about the relationship between cultural identity and media consumption. On reflection, it is argued that the epistemological foundation of global audience studies must provide for a greater recognition of the subjective and demographic diversity of audiences as well as the inherent hybridity and multiplication of media sources in everyday experience.