Digitalization as formalization: A view from below

Abstract

Abstract Like any technology-related choice, digitalization contribu tes to, inter alia, streamlining and standardization in the TV industry, thereby leading to formalization of an industry as a whole and creating new configurations of interest. If digitalization, at any stage, level or place in the value chain, is made mandatory it will not only accelerate this transition but, more significantly, define the very personality of formalization. This article delves into the least explored area in the otherwise exploding research on television in India: the field of distribution. It paints a textured picture of the ways in which the informal business of distribution in the city of Patna was engulfed in the regulatory warp and weft of mandatory digitalization. The article argues that regulatory interventions to formalize this ‘primitive’ segment of the television economy led to reorganizing the balance of interests in the emergent ecology of digital television in India.