The romance between Bollywood and Digital Media

The Indian cinema, often referred to as Bollywood, is when it comes to production scale the largest movie industry in the world. The media and creative industries have been facing a new challenge in the past decade such as, but not limited to, the implementation of new digital media technologies in their digital promotional strategies. This research looks into the promotional activities in contemporary Bollywood that are visible to the consumer. The research question: “How does Bollywood use social media for promotional activities to reach the domestic and global market and possibly strengthen their current promotional strategies?” will be answered through two in-depth case studies on Bollywood blockbuster movie ‘Happy New Year’ and a movie that did exceptionally well ‘Queen’. This research firstly touches upon the changes and the development the industry went through, followed by creating an understanding of the industry’s contemporary position. The first step of the analysis is based on creating an in-depth understanding of the cases and the corresponding data from among others Facebook and Twitter. The following step of the analysis is solely focussed on the adjoining film music industry, in which the attention is paid to the promotion of the film music and also the promotion through the official social media channels of the cases. The third area of focus being unravelled is the (global) audience of the film industry. The audience has been divided in multiple segments, in order to identify possible appealable elements in the movies’ online promotional activities. The final factor also investigated is the role and influence of the celebrity when it comes to promotional efforts of a movie. Throughout this final section the role and influence of the celebrities on the audience and society plays an important role, as well as the role of the celebrity in promotional efforts of the movie. This research thus not solely focuses on the digital and traditional promotional activities, but also the role of the adjoining film music industry, the role of the celebrity and identification of the global audience.