The soft power of popular cinema: the case of India

Among BRICS nations, India has the most developed and globalised film industry, and the Indian government as well as corporations are increasingly deploying the power of Bollywood in their international interactions. India’s soft power, arising from its cultural and civilizational influence outside its territorial boundaries, has a long history. Focusing on contemporary India’s thriving Hindi film industry, this article suggests that the globalisation of the country’s popular cinema, aided by a large diaspora, has created possibilities of promoting India’s public diplomacy. It examines the global imprint of this cinema as an instrument of soft power

Redefining gender stereotypes in Indian English TV advertising

The aim of this study was to examine glocalization in Hinglish TV commercials, specifically those that break and redefine gender stereotypes. It examines how Hindi and English in these commercials modulate sociocultural identities, representing Hindi as old and English as new. Two questions which are addressed in this article are whether Hinglish reflects the hybrid culture of the new urban Indian, and whether there is an emergence of new modern values associated with liberalism in place of the older traditional values of family, marriage and propriety