Informality in the Time of Platformization

Abstract

In this chapter, I argue that formalization, not as a simple economic fact ascertained by licensed product sale but as a force determining the performative temperament, stands at odds with the ‘vernacular’ media in general, and Bhojpuri media in particular. That is why, even as online views multiply and offline data kiosks continue to thrive, the performative informality of the live concert continues to mobilize millions across remote villages, small towns, and big cities. What can be rendered in terms of new technologies and platforms enabling specific sort of publics must not overwrite another adjacent trajectory—that of informality, as a performative excess, as a cultural cache of communitarian solidarity particularly built around language affinities, as a visceral aspect of music economy, seeking its life outside the formal straitjacket. The live concerts then stand not in opposition to, but adjacent to, the platformization and formalization of the media economy.