Until the 1990s, dissemination of news through print and the commercial cinema represented the most significant media presences in the Indian context. The factors that shaped the historical and political context of discussion in the public domain include: the limited nature of participation and access to print media for large segments of the population; the predominance of upper-caste agents, especially in the print media; the internal divisions, on the one hand, between English and regional language audiences, and between the regional language reading publics on the other. Within this larger scenario, the links between big business houses and Indian news media, especially the press, in the post-Independence period, have been fairly well documented. As Robin Jeffrey's work has well shown, the expansion in the market for political news and the consumer base from the 1980s onwards has resulted in a phenomenal rise in the circulation of regional-language newspapers. Significant as these trends have been, it is debatable if they have brought about any fundamental shifts in reversing the relations of power underlying the structure of the public sphere, especially those pertaining to the nature of ownership, participation and access.

Parallel to these connections, but less analysed in terms of their implications for the nature of the Indian public sphere, have been the relations between the entertainment media and speculative capital and the informal sectors of the money markets. Students of popular Indian cinema have long known that, with its nationwide markets and growing international audiences, the commercial film industry is an attractive area for the investment of unaccounted profits.