Behind the Screens
Indian Talent Agents and the Making of Global Media.
Research
Smith's research examines how digital platforms reshape the screen industries — streaming, television, social media entertainment — and what that means for creators, talent, and labour, with a sustained focus on India and the Global South.
Books
Indian Talent Agents and the Making of Global Media.
Digital Transformation of Media. View →
Co-edited with Tugce Bidav.
In the reviews
The New Screen Ecology in India has been reviewed across four international journals.
Publications
The Road to Censorship: The Case of Digital Audiovisual Industries in India
International Journal of Cultural Policy — with E. R. Amit-DanhiPeripheral Creator Cultures in India, Ireland, and Turkey
Social Media + Society, 10(1) — with T. BidavWhere are the Women? Gendered Indian Digital Production Cultures Post #metoo
Television & New Media, 24(7), 770–790Digitalization and Informality in media industries: beyond the platform-portal divide?
Contemporary South Asia, 31(2), 276–290 — with S. CunninghamMedia Censorship: Obscuring Autocracy and Hindutva-ideology in Indian Governance
Communication, Culture and Critique — with D. B. V. KayeIndian intermediaries in new media: Mainstreaming the margins
Convergence, 27(1), 229–246Television's role in Indian new screen ecology
Media, Culture & Society, 42(7–8), 1226–1242Precarity and New Media: Through the Lens of Indian Creators
International Journal of Communication, 13The perils of being a "woman": Acute problems within Indian media ecology
Feminist Media Studies, 19(7), 1056–1060Pushing the Next Level: Investigating Digital Content Creation in India
Television & New Media — with D. B. V. KayePlatforms, Policy, and Power in Global South Audio-visual Industries
In Media Studies Now (H. Wood & A. Deshbandhu, eds.). Routledge, LondonYouTube and the social media entertainment–television interface
In From Networks to Netflix (D. Johnson, ed.). Routledge, 2nd ed. — with Cunningham, Lunardi & HealyGlobal institutional perspectives on GenAI & cultural industries
Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society (eds.) — Poell, Arriagada, Caminhas, Divon, Mehta, Nieborg, Simon & YeA perspective from Nollywood: Examining how GenAI is integrated in the Nigerian film industry
AI & Society — Simon, Poell, Nieborg, Mehta & CaminhasPlatform-Led Institutionalisation and Creative Labour in Indian Screen Production
Media, Culture and Society — with P. SinhaVillage Productions: Digital Media, Creative Videos, and Neighbourhood Solidarities in Rural India
New Media and Society — with S. NayakaInstitutional configurations of AI: The political economy of GenAI in Japan's anime industry
The Information Society — Ye, Poell, Caminhas, Mehta, Nieborg, Arriagada & SimonStruggling to do justice to decolonial and postcolonial theory: Developing global perspectives on AI and cultural production
International Journal of Cultural Studies — special issue on DecolonialityPublic writing
An op-ed on the dangers of vague speech regulation and its chilling effect on India's digital public sphere.
Read at The Indian Express →Selected conference presentations
Public talks & interviews