Page 36 - From Bombay to Bollywoord The Making of a Global Media Industri

Introduction >> 23

In the second part of this chapter, I describe the emergence of Saavn.com, a
digital media company that has emerged as one of the most prominent nodes
in the circulation of Bollywood films and film music as a way to understand
the challenges faced by media producers and cultural critics in imagining and
mobilizing diasporic audiences in an era of increasing global connectivity. I
analyze the ways in which this digital media company has leveraged ties in
India and the U.S. to respond to the transcultural nature of contemporary
diasporic culture and, in the process, established new trajectories of circula-
tion for Bollywood that are overlooked by professionals working primarily
in Bombay. This chapter thus reflects on what it takes to conjure the diaspora
as a viable scale of media production and circulation in a terrain defined not
only by changing relations between Bombay and Los Angeles but perhaps
more crucially, by informal and grassroots networks of media circulation and
mobile social networks that commercial media ventures find nearly impos-
sible to match in scale and scope.
In the concluding chapter, “Fandom and Other Transnational Futures,” I
begin by reflecting on how a focus on industrial change and ongoing shifts in
Bollywood’s presence in the world speaks to broader issues of relationships
between geography, cultural production, and cultural identity. I then shift
attention to the ways in which Bollywood’s cultural geography has also been
shaped by the work of media users who circulate and engage with Bollywood
content in ways that transcend the traditional boundaries of the nation-
state, linguistic barriers, and market segments imagined by industry profes-
sionals. Plugged into and in many instances defined by a world encircling
pirate infrastructure, fan practices forge trajectories of media circulation that
challenge industry discourses of illegality as well as scholarly paradigms for
understanding global media cultures. Presenting an example of participatory
culture surrounding Bollywood—a fan community that has cohered around
the renowned music director A. R. Rahman—I outline the implications of
focusing on participatory cultures for our understanding of the spatial logics
and politics of media globalization.