Over-the-Top Video Services in India: Media Imperialism after Globalization

Abstract

This article reviews the rapid growth of over-the-top (OTT) video services in India, such as Voot, Hotstar, Netflix, and Amazon, and places their development in the context of the dominant trends and business models at the international level. The expansion of such services in India, a country that ranks as the second largest market globally for "tech companies" such as Facebook and Amazon, raises questions about conceptions of development, participation, diversity, and power used to understand platformization in areas such as communication and culture. The article assesses the specific dynamics of platform growth in the country in relation to the interplay between new digital infrastructures, including fiber-optic cables, broadband networks, and smartphones; corporate strategies among small and large, local and international players; and state policy and regulation, which seeks to both address concerns about economic, political, and cultural security and spur the socioeconomic development of India among "wired" nations.