India on the Western Screen
Imaging a Country in Film, TV, and Digital Media
by Ananda Mitra

Average rating: ![]()
| 0 | rating | |
| 0 | rating | |
| 0 | rating | |
| 0 | rating |
Your rating: -
Book Presentation:
An insightful analysis and impact assessment of the ways in which India is portrayed on different screens in the west
This book examines the nuances of multiple images―cinema, TV, computer, and smartphones―that feed into the making of a new Indian narrative and showcase an India that is very different from the unilinear notion that used to exist a few decades ago. It elaborates on the critical role of the impressions formed in redefining how the Indian diaspora is imagined and received in the West, which in turn impacts everyday experiences of Indians living there.
Building on his earlier book India through the Western Lens: Creating National Images in Film (SAGE 1999), which focused primarily on films, Mitra expands his latest study to new media. Effectively, the book highlights the West’s perception of India based on what is being projected through visual media.
About the Author:
Ananda Mitra is a Professor of Communication at Wake Forest University, teaching courses on new media, India, and research methodology. His publications include a 10-volume series on digital technology and its social impact, a critical examination of the Indian TV series Mahabharat, an examination of the portrayal of India in the Western cinema, a book about the ways in which new digital technologies are increasingly alienated from the users, a book on the cultural issues surrounding the use of social media, and two books on research methodology. Some of these include Digital DNA: Social Networking and You (2014), India through the Western Lens: Creating National Images in Film (SAGE 1999), Alien Technology: Coping with Modern Mysteries (SAGE 2010), and Television and Popular Culture in India: A Study of the Mahabharat (SAGE 1993).He has consulted with many different industries and is the inventor of the concept of “narbs” that allows for a careful and systematic narrative analysis of the unstructured component of big data that has become available with the growth of social media. He is considered a specialist in analyzing the way in which narratives produce images of people and places, with a special emphasis on representation of Indians across the globe.
> On a related topic:
Visual Anthropology of Indian Films (2024)
Religious Communities and Cultural Traditions in Bollywood and Beyond
Dir. Pankaj Jain
Muslim Identity in Hindi Cinema (2025)
Poetics and Politics of Genre and Representation
Cinema and the Indian National Emergency (2025)
Histories and Afterlives
Dir. Parichay Patra and Dibyakusum Ray
A History of India's North-East Cinema (2025)
Deconstructing the Stereotypes
The Revolution of Indian Parallel Cinema in the Global South (1968–1995) (2025)
From Feminism to Iconoclasm
by Omar Ahmed
The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema (2025)
Voice, Body, Technology