Market matters: interdependencies in the Indian media economy

Abstract

<jats:p> In the complex operations of the Indian media economy, the phrase ‘media markets’ requires careful consideration as an analytical concept. As a noun, ‘media markets’ is typically used to refer to a spread of media businesses and/or consumer sectors. Closer examination reveals that there tend to be multiple markets operating simultaneously within any media business (for products, capital, labour, audience, etc.). This implies an ‘economy of markets’, transacting both across media formats and with markets situated outside of the media production process. Both ‘media exchanges’ and ‘mediated exchanges’ shape the dynamics of the inter-locking markets that constitute the Indian media economy. Thus, at the categorical level, we ask several questions: What are the boundaries of media markets? Who are the key actors? How are these transactional relationships valued? With these questions in mind, this article seeks to identify points of distinction in form and geography along with critical relationships between overlapping markets and underlying interests. We propose a topology of Indian media markets, organised via three levels, with treatment of each taking into consideration the synergistic character of media markets and how interdependency shapes functional norms, rules of exchange, and the embedding of media transactions. </jats:p>

The Networked Media Economy and the Indian Gilded Age

“…(2001, p.111) It is Braudel's basic conception of the evolving operations of capitalism within a stratified global economy that unites the arguments of Arrighi and Bouquillion. It also clearly resonates with the three-tier model of India media markets posited recently by Parthasarathi and Athique (2019). According to Braudel's conception, capitalism occupies the top layer of a three-tiered structure, differentiated on the basis of a 'hierarchy of exchanges' (Braudel, 1977(Braudel, , 1982.…”

Indian intermediaries in new media: Mainstreaming the margins

“…Their ability to mediate the quotidian content creation practices on new media demonstrates their power in influencing the content that shapes the algorithmic culture of streaming platforms. Parthasarathi and Athique (2019: 11) highlight the ‘synergistic combinations of formal and non-formal practices’ to demonstrate the interdependences within the Indian media economy. My findings on the significance of the intermediaries within the Indian new media offers a meso-level approach of how social relations mediate the industrial and cultural logics between the creators, intermediaries and streaming platforms and articulate the various ways in which intermediaries influence the media texts.…”

“…Moreover, the significance of intermediaries will also be analysed from two perspectives, first, by identifying their India-specific cultural and commercial practices and, second, by discussing their relevance within the contemporary Indian media landscape. As I show in my analysis, these very practices shape the informal and formal practices of the media marketplace (Parthasarathi and Athique, 2019).…”

Dismembering media diversity: A tryst with two press commissions

“…As a result of both these dynamics, a big press was fast emerging in regional India. Although the Indian press had become broad-based, it was not devoid of market power exerted by newspaper combines and business-owned dailies located in regional centres, a phenomenon typifying media markets in present day India (see Parthasarathi and Athique, 2020). This scenario posed clear challenges to standing conceptions of risks to diversity in the press.…”