Bollywood Cinema and Contemporary Audiences: Surveying Viewer Perceptions and Practices.

Although much theorizing has been done in the past few years regarding audience perceptions and practices relative to popular Hind i, or "Bollywood," cinema, there have been relatively few studies providing empirical data as evidence for such theorizing. Given more recent scholarly acknowledgment of the active and participatory nature of the Bollywood viewing experience (Gehlawat, 2010), in this paper we report the findings from a broad survey of more than 400 Hindi film viewers located throughout the Indian subcontinent and abroad who were asked to reflect upon their own perceptions of Bollywood film content and to report on persona l practices often associated with these themes. The results provide a rare, quantitative look at processes related to the interpretation of Hindi film content within an increasingly hybridized and globalized viewing context. By comparing data from Indian and diasporic viewers, the results also provide quantitative evidence of a cultural proximity effect at work with respect to perceptions and practices associated with popular Hindi cinema. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]