Danielle
Do you think TV reinforces inequality instead of providing companionship and entertainment for women? Do you believe that it is detrimental rather than beneficial?
Zach
Mankekar states that "the women I worked with were able to critique televisual discourses at the same time they intimately engaged with them." As American's do we also perform this idea? Do we watch and critique television, but still consume it at a high rate?
Collin
"... we learn about life from the emotions that television's discourses arouse in us." Is this view commonly shared by those who frequently watch television (outside of the novel)?
Chris
"Television created a site where relations of inequality were crystallized and reinscribed" (52). Do you observe this in your own household, residence hall, or in American society? How is the dynamic similar or different?
Meredith
How does femininity play a role in the racial, religious, and socioeconomic understandings of culture in India? In other words, do you always "notice" gender when reading Mankekar's text?
Brandon
Do you think India views TV as more of an instructional and learning resource compared to the United States where it is somewhat recreational in that people watch the most mindless and dumbest things?
Margaret
Mankekar writes that television is able to connect everyday life with politics by "constructing 'an image of the unified nation, built around the experiences that we are all assumed to share, as members of families.'" Is this construct on the same normative level of gender?
Laquan
How does television aid in the relationship between popular culture and subversiveness?
Greg
It is apparent that the influence of the television in India has a large role in the structure of a family; however, is it also possible that this influence can lead to subversive behaviors that could also re-shape families in a way that creates tension among members?
Beth
is popular culture, specifically television, always created to increase hegemonic ideologies of the dominant social class? can it ever enable social mobility?
Suzanne
Does television's aptitude for generalizing culture, like it's depiction of Southern Indians vs. Northern Indians, cause further divides between the two or is it simply easier for viewers to understand whats going on or where a character is from? Should the matter be considered a serious issue that is strengthening stereotypes or just media exaggeration?
Matt
The author talked about bhaav, where a viewer ignores the real world and "surrenders to the mood of what is being watched. (25)" Is this similar to the suspension of disbelief, where a person casts off doubts and immerses themselves in the movie?
Jennifer
Are women not satisfied if the endings to the serials were not as they expected just as the women in Radway's book were not happy if the endings to romance novels were not characteristic of typical romance novels?
Lauren
Do you think that American television programs have social messages from the government like the Doordarshan programs do? If so, what types of programs have these messages?
Marie
Why do families like the Dasguptas, who are already in need of money, feel that they must be in possession of commercial goods like a television, as they struggle to become "middle class"? Do we see similar actions in American culture? How many television sets does one household actually need? Yet, why do Americans have so many in their homes?
Jermone
do you think other forms of media could be as effective at getting to the passions of audiences?
Ivan
Are the way demographics are formulated for US television made it so that programing is geared toward the individual rather than the family?
Cara
What does it mean to create a "feminist ethnography"? What makes a "feminist" approach different?