Culture and Communication: Old and New
The imagination of a new India or an emerging India is both an economic imagination and a cultural imagination. Culture and economy are intertwined. The elite stories of a transforming India are stories of a changing culture that have been brought about b
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Culture and Communication: Old and New
The imagination of a new India or an emerging India is both an economic imagination and a cultural imagination. Culture and economy are intertwined. The elite stories of a transforming India are stories of a changing culture that have been brought about by the emancipatory forces of a free market. The doxa of neoliberalism works on this basic script of the foundational truth of liberalization as an enabler of the aspirations of Indians, and as freedom from the limits imposed by the state and its bureaucratic machines (Chopra 2013). The underlying story of the neoliberal transformation of India is one of hope and positive emotions, with the aspirations of Indians now realized through the miraculous powers of market. Markets are enablers of culture, enabling culture to find expression in a narrative of hope. Desires and aspirations of Indians, expressed in the cultural matrix, are intertwined with the market, with new opportunities for Indians to participate in cultural forms and processed, albeit narrated through the market. Culture is imagined in the economic realm, and economics is portrayed as the mainspring of a cultural imagination. Of particular interest is the relationship between the market and the culture. Markets operate in the realm of economics, historically situated as belonging in the arena of the outside, and different from the realm of culture. In the narratives of liberalization, the principles of the free market are established as antithetical to the traditional culture of India, thus bringing culture into the framework of economic development. The market is proposed as a solution to India’s cultural problems. At the same time, the market is positioned as a cohesive cultural bond that connects Indians together in an overarching thread of aspiration. Neoliberal reforms are presented as catalysts of culture, transforming the traditional culture of India. Participation in the market is presented as an instrument for changing the local culture of India, aligning it with the principles of the free market, enterprise, and aspiration. The media emerge in the elite imagination as cultural sites of articulation and connection to the market. The story of the free market is told through the power of the media. How are old and new media forms and cultural artifacts understood in © The Author(s) 2017 M.J. Dutta, Imagining India in Discourse, The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science 14, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3051-2_6
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6 Culture and Communication: Old and New
elite discourses of imagination and what are the dominant value frames that underlie these discourses? How do elites writing on and about India and penning the imaginations for India understand the role of the media and culture, both new and old? What role do they see of communication structures and communication processes, and how do these roles tie in with national-global configurations of governance that the elite imagine? What are the signifying practices constituting culture around liberaliza
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