DECODING INDIA’S POPULAR CULTURE. THE ROMANIAN WOMEN VIEWERS’ GAZE

Abstract

Our article starts from the assumption that the ingredients of success in the case of the Indian cultural products are based on their “cultural value”. India’s value of cultural products is multidimensional and it does not strictly reside at the language level known by the public or by just part of it. Our analysis shows that the success of India’s popular culture is based on the perception of Romanian audiences of them as a cultural “mix” between the “local” (that is, Indian) elements and the appeal at a set of “global” (universal) values. More precisely, in the case of Romanian audiences for India’s cultural products (TV series) there was a validation of theories regarding the cultural hybrid motivations involved in media consumption, theories about the importance of cultural proximity in the consumption of popular culture’s products and theories emphasizing globalism and of these cultural products, making them desirable and wanted world-wide.