"Part of the Themes in Politics series, this volume examines the emergence of the Indian public sphere and its interplay with politics, society, and culture. It surveys a wide range of communication media contributing to this development--oral, print, radio, television, cinema, and the Internet--through an analysis of the transition from the colonial to the postcolonial period. The essays in this volume show that mediation is a social process that extends beyond 'the media' and must be understood as a component of historical dynamics. They explore a wide range of historical and political mediations--from the use of the drum and buffalo horn as instruments of peasant insurgency against the British, and early Hindi pulp fiction, to socio-political implications of advertising, Hindu tele-epics, saas-bahu serials and the Internet. Identifying the continuities and changes in media from an interdisciplinary perspective, the essays are organized into four themes--the formation of a colonial public sphere; the emergence of a national popular domain; transformations in national developmentalism; and emergent orders such as consumerism and digital culture. A comprehensive introduction provides an understanding of Indian media through the analytical framework of the public sphere."--Jacket.