Introduction: Mainstreaming the Marginal

The late 1980s and early 1990s marked a shift in “the popular” with the introduction of television sets, the internet and the revamping of Indian cities into multinational hubs, bringing about changes—economic, cultural and political, all at once—in lifestyle and consumer behaviour. Some scholars have seen it as a moment of Westernization where Bollywood and India-based TV channels adopted the glossy styles of the West but kept the storyline and content “Indian”. This book intends to contribute to the study of still-emerging fields such as the new digital platforms including OTT, smartphone apps, genres such as web-series, docudrama and memes. This emerging field of study will emphasize that the notions of self, society, culture and social relations are more dependent on our understanding of new forms of technology than they are on traditional forms of analysis.