Pirate Modernity

Sundaram, Ravi

doi:10.4324/9780203875421

Cited by 174 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…As Ravi Sundaram and Ramon Lobato have shown, "piratic infrastructures" tend to develop where a lack of access to media means that so-called "piracy" becomes the only option for consumers. 49 Furthermore, we have to ask what will make Africa-based audiences pay for online content when they can access a great deal of content for free through YouTube and when there is also pirated content available very cheaply on street corners, such as on USB sticks sold for US$2-US$4? 50 Perhaps this is where pay television statistics in Africa can be helpful; there were an estimated twenty-four million pay television subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa in 2016.…”

Section: Bridging or Reinforcing The Domestic/ Diasporan Divide? The mentioning

confidence: 99%

Entertaining Africans: Creative Innovation in the (Internet) Television Space

Dovey¹

2018

Media Industries Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the growing scholarly literature on internet television, Africa is mentioned tangentially, if at all. This article attempts to rectify this by offering one of the first studies of Africa-based and Africa-focused internet television and video on demand (VOD) for domestic and diasporan African audiences. It begins by giving a brief overview of screen and television infrastructure across Africa before moving on to describe the landscape of internet television in Africa, focusing on six core competitive factors: content, internet connectivity, data costs, payment options, security, and multimedia convergence. Finally, it identifies and briefly analyzes the potentially most popular Africa-based and Africa-focused internet television and VOD platforms. The article draws on original interviews conducted with key players at some of the most important Africa-based and African-focused internet television and VOD platforms and with other African media scholars and filmmakers who have expertise in different regions of the continent (and specifically

show abstract

Section: Bridging or Reinforcing The Domestic/ Diasporan Divide? The mentioning

confidence: 99%

Entertaining Africans: Creative Innovation in the (Internet) Television Space

Dovey¹

2018

Media Industries Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Lajpat Rai Market became an important wholesale market of video games by nurturing links with individual importers, the “suitcase” entrepreneurs that went to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Dubai and brought video games to the country (Sundaram, 2010). Many traders in Lajpat Rai Market point out that video games became part of the informal markets through the initiative of a few courageous and smart importers.…”

Section: The Golden Age Of the Bazaars Of Video Games In India: 1980smentioning

confidence: 99%

Bazaars and Video Games in India

Deka

2016

BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article examines the history of video games in India through the lens of Delhi's electronic bazaars. As many gamers shifted from playing Atari Games in the 1980s to PlayStation in the 2000s, we see a change in the role that the bazaars play. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the bazaars were the crucial channels of smuggling video games into India. In the 2000s, the bazaars face competition from official channels. Increasingly, the branded showrooms and online market attract elite consumers who can afford to buy the latest original video game. I argue that, while in the twenty-first century, the electronic bazaars have seen a decline in their former clientele, they now play a new role: they have become open places through the circulation of "obsolete" video games, and the presence of a certain bazaari disposition of the traders. The obsolete games in the form of cartridge, cracked console, and second hand games connect video games to people outside the elite network of corporate and professional new middle class. This alongside the practice of bargaining for settling price creates dense social relationships between a trader and a consumer.

show abstract

“…Rodowick’s (2007) work on the “virtual” and afterlife of celluloid-films, as well as specific interventions such as Sundaram’s (2010) Pirate Modernity , on the reception and circulation of pirated videos in India, have analyzed the present-day media practices and its implications. 1 Indeed, cheaply produced consumer items, including DVD players, consumer cameras, and cellular phones, and their easy availability in the suburban and rural market (of India) during the last decade has played a crucial role in the manner in which media scenes have altered rapidly.…”

Section: Locating Video Culturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a New Frame for Regional Films: Manbhum Videos and the Other Side of (Indian) Cinema

Mukherjee

2016

BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article focuses on the production and mass circulation of locally produced videos in and across socially marginalized areas of Bengal. It emerges from the research conducted on the video industry located in Purulia District, West Bengal. These videos, known as “Manbhum videos,” signifying both place and idiom, are connected to video cultures proliferating across the Global South since the last decade. While new media cultures have become a crucial part of contemporary cinema studies, production of Manbhum videos (and videos produced in other local languages) point toward a new understanding of both cinema in India and categories like regional films. It raises questions regarding the ways in which “regional cinema” has been described so far, and the manner in which it may be redefined in the new media context. Such small-scale and localized video production in West Bengal and its circulation across disparate districts of India and Bangladesh, inform us that frameworks like “Bengali cinema” are deeply fragmented. Therefore, by studying the videos and its growth, this article shows in what way alternative settings and landscapes, narratives tropes, styles of performance and speech become pertinent in these videos, which effectively address a longer history of marginalization and political tussle.

show abstract

Pirate Modernity

Cited by 174 publications

References 0 publications

Entertaining Africans: Creative Innovation in the (Internet) Television Space

Entertaining Africans: Creative Innovation in the (Internet) Television Space

Bazaars and Video Games in India

Toward a New Frame for Regional Films: Manbhum Videos and the Other Side of (Indian) Cinema

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About