Consuming lifestyles: Local television, neo-liberalism and divergent social imaginaries in India

Using as its case study examples from both vernacular and English language, metropolitan lifestyle television in India, this article explores the different aspirations among the westernized, urban elites and the more ‘traditional’ populations, and diverse patterns of affiliation these entail. Analysing the complex cultural economy of consumption practices, television programming and lifestyle ambitions, this article argues, requires a new conceptual framework that takes on board refinements of concepts such as hybridity and modernity while attempting to track the ways in which the cultural is manifest in the material.