ABSTRACT
Gender in contemporary Indian media and popular culture is a pervasive presence. There are three grounds upon which this visibility of gender rests: one is India’s new economic policy, two the Indian women’s movement, three the prominence and reach of media in contemporary India. The fi rst two developments are historically distinct and apparently ideologically incommensurate. However, as are the curious ways of history, their paths have intersected and found myriad expressions in a proliferating and converging media. The unprecedented growth of the media and communication industry, our third context, owes as much to revolutionary technological innovations as to a political economy where communication, representation and publicity increasingly defi ne contemporary public culture (Chaudhuri 2010b). A consequence of this intersection is the hyper-visibility of gender in a loquacious and an intensely mediated popular culture. A brief elaboration of the three contexts within which this chapter rests is therefore in order.
