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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2023

Cross-Sectoral Relations in VOD Markets

Résumé

This chapter captures the multiple reconfigurations witnessed in India’s Video on Demand (VoD) business, the fastest growing segment of the country’s media economy. By ‘reconfiguration’ we highlight two dynamics: one, the way the two types of domestic actors in this business – from the legacy audio-visual industries and from the communication industries – have reformulated their strategies to the demands of video platforms; and two,the way trans-national actors in the digital economy, i.e. from the content, web and infrastructure businesses, have localized their production practices and content offerings in video platforms. To a fair extent, the VoD business illustrates the expansion of the largely under-regulated audio-visual markets characterizing contemporary India. However, the rise of a consequential player in video platforms, the telecom giant Reliance Jio, and the regulatory approach towards the cloud business convey, respectively, the implicit and explicit role of the state. Our central argument is the deployment of video platforms has not only reconfigured the relationship between frontend and backend of the digital economy but has inserted the (once distinct) media economy into the wider digital economy. We insist these commercial, industrial, and technical processes be also examined in light of the mediating role of the state. For one, the strategies of Reliance Jio, a dominant actor in video platforms and the wider digital economy, have benefited from institutional leniency and regulatory silences. We further observe a logic of “stateness” in the emergent policy framework towards the backend cloud business. In a milieu increasingly marked by forces of national capitalism and digital privatization, this chapter delves into three dynamics: the loss of economic autonomy of traditional players in the audiovisual industries (i.e. the frontend); their relationships of dependence with players in digital infrastructures and services (i.e. the backend); and, in this game of cooperation and competition, one player, the telecommunication giant Reliance Jio, being insidiously propelled by the state (i.e. the deepend). We close by drawing attention the evolving regulatory framework around the Cloud business to point at explicit attempts of stateness at play, and the synergies this offers to dominant players like Reliance Jio.
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Dates et versions

hal-04355378 , version 1 (20-12-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04355378 , version 1

Citer

Vibodh Partharasathi, Bouquillion Philippe, Christine Ithurbide. Cross-Sectoral Relations in VOD Markets: Frontend, Backend, and Deepend in India. Media Backends - Digital Infrastructures and Sociotechnical Relations, 2023, The Geopolitics of Information, 978-0-252-08746-2. ⟨hal-04355378⟩
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