Global Leader, Local Challenges: An Overview of Streaming in India

Abstract

The rise of digital technologies in the past three decades transformed how individuals and societies consume and interpret media. This digital penetration impacts almost every aspect of social life, including the form, content and affordances transnational media conglomerates offer. The post-2000 shifts from traditional broadcasting to digital streaming introduced new questions about contemporary media technologies. One such question is the significance of global media conglomerates’ localisation of technologies and texts in diverse markets such as India, where the streaming industry is expected to hit $15 billion by the decade’s end. This study, grounded in the theoretical frameworks of global media, political economy and cultural studies, attempted to enhance existing scholarship on hybridity or glocalisation, the fusion between global and local cultures, by analysing the effects of streaming in India’s rapidly digitising economy. Through textual and document analysis, the study examined the factors across content preferences, pricing policies and regulatory environment that contributed to Netflix’s struggles and the relative success of Disney+Hotstar and JioCinema in the Indian market. Investigating cultural and economic factors revealed that global media conglomerates and platforms must localise their messages, agendas and ideologies for adequate consumption, interpretation and adoption.