With technological advancement in the digital realm and ever-increasing accessibility to variety of media, innumerable forces are shaping the cultural mind set of present day consumer. Modern day high choice media-saturated environment shapes most of consumer knowledge, understanding, and interpretations of the world. Social norms are internalized through the representations in the media.

Cinema is one such powerful media vehicle widely considered as a microcosm of social, political, economic, and cultural life of a nation.¹Movies are the mainstay of entertainment and almost a religion in India. It has shaped and expressed the changing scenarios of modern India. India’s Hindi language movie industry called ‘Bollywood’ is the world’s most prolific factory of cinema.²Bollywood movies allow its audience to identify with the depiction of characters as portrayed on screen and providing a major reference point for Indian culture. The ever-increasing popularity of Bollywood suggests the need to explore the messages that are being conveyed through this medium of entertainment. Scholars and academicians have shown keen interest in researching on different aspects of Bollywood movies. In this back drop, this empirical research paper attempts to study the influence of Bollywood movies on selected contemporary Indian cultural values.

THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENT:

In this section, attempt is made to establish relationship between cinema, culture and consumption by reviewing past research studies. Literature is reviewed on cinema as a powerful vehicle of mass media and the significance of Bollywood movies in the Indian context. This is followed by reviewing studies on culture, its impact on consumption and various theories that operationalize culture.

CINEMA: A FORM OF MASS MEDIA:

Mass media is a powerful social system, playing an important role in creating a person’s sense of reality.³For example, mass media images provide prototypic expectations about the consumption patterns like dress, food preferences, leisure activities, appearance which are characteristic of variety of persons who are rich/poor, young/old, male/female and blue collar/professional.^4,5Consumers' interpretation of media is an intrinsically social and interactive process in which audiences act not as passive consumers of media persuasion, but rather as active producers of perceived meaning.⁶ Consumers use internally based percepts in constructing the meaning of media, including cinema.⁷

Cinema has occupied a significant position as a form of mass media since its inception in the early 1900’s. Over the years, the film industry has grown and evolved rapidly with the power to reach massive audience. Movies are truly modern-day storytelling instruments due to the visual and audio stimulation they provide. Film is perhaps the single strongest agency for the creation of a national mythology of heroism, consumerism, leisure, and sociality.⁸ Cinema is the contested site where meanings are negotiated, traditions made and remade, identities affirmed or rejected.¹

BOLLYWOOD:

The Hindi language movie industry, popularly known as ‘Bollywood’, is based in Mumbai, the commercial capital of India. Bollywood industry is the largest filmmaking entity in the world, producing around 1000 movies annually, which is about double of Hollywood’s output.²The annual tickets sale of Bollywood movies has surpassed that of Hollywood movies.⁹

Numerous authors in the past have written several discourses outlining the history and structure of Bollywood and discussing major paradigms of theorizing and analyzing Bollywood. The pioneering work by Rangoonwala in 1975displays the beginnings of interest in the relationship between Bollywood’s textual structures and Indian social structures, and between generic features of Hindi films and the satisfaction to be derived from them by audiences.¹⁰Barnouw and Krishnaswamyin 1980 elaborated the ways in which Hindi films articulate the fears and desires of audiences around the conflicting demands of age-old traditions and modernity.¹¹

Different scholars have examined Bollywood movies from various perspectives: Bollywood movies of pre and post-independent India;¹²ideology of genres in Bollywood;¹³action genres in Bollywood;¹⁴technology and aesthetics of Bollywood movies;¹⁵changes in post-liberalization cinema and overseas reception of Bollywood films.¹⁵

Role and representations of cultural icons in Bollywood movies have been examined by pinpointing key trends in Bollywood film industry as it develops in the age of globalization, subjecting Bollywood to systematic sociological, cultural and media analysis.¹⁶ Sets, locations and costumes in Bollywood movies are studied in order to understand Indian fashion, lifestyle and consumption.¹⁷Scholars have discuss the issues of capitalism, nationalism, orientalism and modernity through understandings of race, class, gender and sexuality, religion, politics and diasporas as depicted in Bollywood films.¹⁸It has been noted in recent past that contemporary filmmaking is marked by efforts to erase, rather than highlight, the signs of cultural difference in order to circulate and accrue distinction globally.¹⁹

CULTURE AND CONSUMPTION:

One of the earliest definitions of culture given by Tylor in 1871 states that cultures the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habit acquired by man as a member ofsociety.²⁰ This definition set the tone for subsequent contributions that share the all-inclusive nature of culture as affecting aspects of human life in a society. Culture is referred to as lens through which the individual views phenomena; and blueprint which it denotes human activity and determines the co-ordinates of social action and productive activity.²¹ It governs how human beings wish to be treated and how they treat others; how they communicate, negotiate process information and make decisions.²²Culture is the collective programming of the mind unique to the members of one group or category of people.²³ Culture can be conceptualized as dynamic production and reproduction of meaning by concrete individuals’ activities in particular contexts.²⁴Culture comprises the shared values, assumptions, understandings and goals that are learned from one generation, imposed by the current generation, and passed on to succeeding generations.²⁵

Culture and consumption have an unprecedented relationship in the modern world.²⁶Reviewing literature from psychology, anthropology, consumer behavior and international marketing, it is contended that culture impacts virtually every construct of concern to marketers.²⁰ Consumption choices cannot be understood without considering the cultural context in which they are made; culture is the prism through which people view products and try to make sense of their own and other people’s consumer behavior.²⁷It is suggested that consumption as it occurs in all societies is beyond commerce, that is, it is not restricted to commerce, but is always a cultural as well as an economic phenomenon.²⁸The utility of goods is always framed by a cultural context, that even the use of the most mundane objects in daily life has cultural meaning.²⁸

OPERATIONALIZING CULTURE:

A number of approaches have been used to identify and operationalize culture, allowing its inclusion in empirical research. Based on a twenty-year review of cross-cultural consumer research, it was concluded that researchers have followed three approaches in order to operationalize culture: through language, through material goods/artifacts and through beliefs/value systems.²⁹Language offers an interpretative code or schema for organizing and presenting the world, but is not a good indicator of ethnicity and cannot be used alone to explain different behaviors across subcultures and cultures. Possessions/artifacts allow a more concrete operationalization of culture, as goods embody visible evidence of cultural meaning. Many cultural artifacts (e.g., durable goods, toys, and clothing) have been studied in cross-cultural contexts. Finally, values/belief systems (e.g., fatalism, materialism, and relations with others) as operational definitions of culture were deemed instrumental in understanding cross-cultural consumer behavior.

Cultural values are classified into three categories: other, environment, and self.²¹Firstly, other-oriented values tell about a society’s viewpoint about the appropriate relationships between individuals and groups within that society. Individual/collective, extended/limited family, competitive/cooperative, diversity/uniformity, masculine /feminine and youth/age are some of the relevant values of this nature. Secondly, environment-oriented values depict a society’s associations with its economic, technical, and physical environments. Factors under consideration of environment values are cleanliness, performance/status, tradition/change, risk taking/ security, problem solving/fatalistic and nature. Thirdly, self-oriented values frame the objectives and approaches to life that individual members of society aspire for. These include active/passive, material/nonmaterial, hard work/leisure, postponed gratification/immediate gratification, sensual gratification/ abstinence and religious/secular.

Other researchers have noted that culture influences human behavior through its manifestations: values, heroes, rituals, and symbols, wherein values are considered to have a central role, affecting other manifestations of culture.³⁰It is suggested that culture has two fundamental components: Abstract and Material.³¹ In terms of abstract components, one may consider values, attitudes, ideas, type of personalities, symbols, rituals and summary constructs like politics and religion. Material component represents visible cultural objects which represent the society as a whole.

Based on the previous studies discussed above, it is found appropriate to operationalize culture through values for this empirical study. India being a heterogeneous country in nature, it is complex for a marketer to identify common threads of Indian culture and core values. Many different sub-cultures coexist in Indian society having own distinctive values, norms, beliefs and behaviors. Researchers have identified cultural values in the Indian context after an in-depth and rigorous study based on two types of literature study and authors’ judgement.³²

The first type of literature study was related to value systems in general. For example, the meanings for the set of values like power distance and uncertainty avoidance,^33,34,23study on values tied to artifacts,³⁵ values pertaining to different cultures and subcultures.³⁶This helped in identifying a large consideration set of values, not all of which were necessarily applicable to Indian culture directly. The other type of literature examined was more specifically written with Indian culture in mind,^37,38online references for listings of Indian values, trends in the Marketing White book about the Indian consumer and behavioral decisions, magazines and news articles specific to the Indian context etc. The authors’ judgment helped to narrow the overall consideration set to an almost exhaustive but concise subset of values applicable in the Indian context. The authors’ judgement was based on familiarity with the Indian subcontinent, its rituals, beliefs and customs, identification of western values and trends that have influenced Indian practices and ability identify the extent of acculturation. As a result of this valuable study, core set of 32 values were identified in the context of marketing in Indian culture.³²

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND HYPOTHESES FORMULATION:

The research objective of this study is to understand significance of Bollywood cinema in shaping cultural values of youth. As discussed in the previous section, culture is operationalized in terms of cultural values and out of the core set of 32 values identified in the Indian context, 5 values are considered for the purpose of this study. The selection of these 5 values is based on author’s judgment with respect to the suitability and scope of the study. The selected cultural values are as follows:

a) Seeking Prosperity: desire to acquire materialistic possessions as a way of living

b) Innovation: one’s desire to experiment with brands and products.

c) Celebrity Orientation: desire to get influenced by celebrities with regard to purchase decision

d) Achievement Seeking: a strong desire to be successful.

e) Neo-mindset Orientation: a desire to break conventions and be rebellious.

The study aims to examine whether consumers perceive a change in their orientation towards these cultural values dues to exposure to Bollywood movies. Drawing upon review of literature on Bollywood in the previous section, it is assumed that consumers will perceive change in their cultural orientation due to Bollywood exposure. Based on this premise, following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 1: Consumers will perceive change in their cultural orientation towards at least one cultural value due to Bollywood exposure.

Further, following hypothesis is proposed in order to examine the effect of movie watching frequency on consumer response:

Hypothesis 2: Consumers’ response will differ with movie watching frequency.

METHODOLOGY:

A descriptive research approach using survey method is undertaken. Primary data is collected through convenient sampling method. A survey of 202post-graduate students is carried out in the city of Ahmedabad, which is the commercial capital of the state of Gujarat in India. All respondents belong to age group of 20-25 years. The survey tool is a structured questionnaire and the contact method is personal interview. The questionnaire contains statements based on value scales developed in 2007 by Kumar, Guruvayurappan and Banerjee.³²The statements are modified appropriately to suit the objective of this study. The response towards these values is measured with respect to past exposure to Bollywood movies in general, without reference to any particular movie or movies. All statements use 5-point Likert scale with the anchors “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.

During data analysis, responses to statements in the questionnaire are coded such that rating of 3 indicates neutral/undecided response, rating of less than 3 indicates no change in cultural orientation towards the cultural value, and a rating of more than 3 indicates change in terms of reinforcement of the value. IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 is used to analyze data for this research. Statistical tests like one sample t-test and independent samples t-test are used for analysis using the conventional significance level criterion of probability p <.05.

RESULTS:

SAMPLE PROFILE:

A total of 202 respondents are surveyed. Personal contact method ensures completeness of all questionnaires, leading to final sample size of 202.The sample consists of 114 (56%) men and 88 (44%) women. The movie watching frequency is measured in terms of average number of Bollywood movies watched per week on any medium i.e. theatre, TV, computer, tablet etc. Based on movie watching frequency, respondents are divided into 2 categories: low frequency and high frequency. Respondents watching more than 2 movies per week on an average fall in high frequency category and those watching 2 or less than 2 movies per week fall in low frequency category. The sample is observed to be divided almost equally between the two categories of frequency, i.e. 102 respondents fall under low frequency category and 100 respondents under high frequency.

HYPOTHESES TESTING:

The two hypotheses proposed in earlier section are tested using relevant statistical tests, as discussed below.

Hypothesis 1: Consumers will perceive change in their cultural orientation towards at least one cultural value due to Bollywood exposure.

One sample t-test is carried out in order to test this hypothesis. The mean score of responses for each cultural value is compared against neutral test value of 3. The results are summarized in Table I.

The findings indicate that the response differs significantly between the two frequency groups for cultural value of Neo-Mindsets orientation at t(200) = -2.48, p=0.01. Hence Hypothesis 2 is accepted. The high frequency group (M=3.60, SD=0.98) exhibits higher desire to break conventions than the low frequency group (M=3.25, SD=0.99). Higher exposure to Bollywood movies suggests greater level of rebelliousness. No significant difference in response between the two groups was found for any other cultural value.

DISCUSSION AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS:

The most noteworthy finding of this study is that exposure to Bollywood movies has indicated reinforcement of 4 cultural values out of the 5 cultural values considered in this research. Achievement Seeking has indicated highest level of reinforcement, followed by Seeking Prosperity, Innovation and Neo-Mindset Orientation in that order. All these values belong to the category of contemporary values that are more likely to embrace western culture and the forces of globalization. These findings suggest that young consumers of today are willing to try new brands shown in movies, wish to own fashionable products and lead luxurious lifestyles that they see in Bollywood movies. Bollywood movies have motivated them to achieve success in life and they love scripts wherein actors break conventions and live life as per their own rules.

In the last couple of decades, numerous Hindi movies could have possibly shaped and promoted these contemporary cultural values. To mention a few, successful Hindi movies like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham [2001], Namastey London [2007], Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara [2012], Dil Dhadakne Do[2015]have showcased lavish sets, exotic foreign and domestic locations, trendy fashion products and luxurious lifestyles. Moreover, superhit movieslike Salaam Namaste [2005], 3 Idiots [2009], Yeh Jawani Hai Diwani [2013], Kapoor and Sons [2016] have promoted neo-traditionalism and deterrence from accepted societal norms.

Further, findings of this study indicate undecided response towards the cultural value of Celebrity Orientation, i.e. respondents are not sure whether their orientation towards this cultural value has changed or not due to Bollywood exposure. This suggests that urban Indian youth is not necessarily attracted towards brands that have on-screen association with actors. In the past decade, Indian advertising has witnessed a steep rise in celebrity endorsement. Star-struck India is among the heaviest users of celebrity endorsements.³⁹This may have resulted in monotony/clutter and hence no longer a definite attraction for consumers.

It is also found in the study that increased exposure to Bollywood exhibits higher reinforcement of Neo-mind set Orientation. This is attributed to the increasing number of non-conforming Bollywood movies in the recent times which are well accepted among the young population. Greater exposure to these movies inculcates acceptability of the unconventional, thus strengthening the impact of this medium.

The findings of this study suggest definite impact of Bollywood movies on urban Indian youth’s orientation towards contemporary cultural values. This implies that Hindi movies can be considered as an effective platform for marketing consumer goods. The practical implications of such a study range from adopting Indian cultural cues to advertisements, to combining a unique mix of Indian cultural values to a particular product. Marketers can use the medium of Hindi movies for promoting brand communication. Consumer goods over and above their utilitarian character and commercial value also communicate cultural meaning.²¹Consumption decisions made in the market are closely related to cultural orientation and allegiance of the consumers. Thus, Bollywood has a huge potential of being a brand shaper for marketers.

FURTHER RESEARCH:

The limitations of this research suggest a number of possibilities for future research. Since this study is limited only to Ahmedabad city with limited sample size, the results are only indicative, not conclusive. A bigger sample size with adequate representation of different strata of society can provide more accurate inferences. Moreover, additional cultural values can be included in future studies to get a holistic insight. Also, additional demographic variables like age, education, income or occupation could be considered to determine differences in cultural impact.

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Received on 14.04.2017 Modified on 07.07.2017

Asian J. Management; 2017; 8(4):983-988.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2017.00152.4

Name of Cultural Value	Mean Score	Standard Deviation	t(201)	P
Seeking Prosperity	3.64	1.04	8.78	0.00*
Innovation	3.58	0.79	10.52	0.00*
Celebrity Orientation	3.07	1.04	0.95	0.34
Neo-mindset Orientation	3.43	1.00	6.04	0.00*
Achievement Seeking	4.00	0.81	17.54	0.00*

Name of Cultural Value	Low frequency (n=102)		High frequency (n=100)		t value	P
Name of Cultural Value	Mean Score	Standard Deviation	Mean Score	Standard Deviation	t value	P
Seeking Prosperity	3.57	1.20	3.72	0.85	t(182.7) = -1.04	0.30
Innovation	3.55	0.75	3.62	0.75	t(200) = -0.64	0.52
Celebrity Orientation	3.06	1.10	3.08	0.98	t(198.34) = -0.14	0.88
Neo-mindset Orientation	3.25	0.99	3.60	0.98	t(200) = -2.48	0.01*
Achievement Seeking	3.94	0.90	4.06	0.71	t(200) = -1.04	0.30