SOCIAL SCIENTIST and feared. All of the respondents in this area stated that they wanted more government regulation, because the images flowing into the home were corrupting and disrupting. Once again,their sense of helplessness is reflected in the fact that they want agents other than themselves to determine what should be seen and what should be censured. The more pressing issue for us is, however, to analyse and wherever possible to intervene in the process of construction of this new modernity, Indian style. Only by offering alternative models of modernity can the fears and desires of the women like those in Ranaghat be transformed into a pattern of living that ensures true dignity and independence. Perhaps, women need to just switch off! NOTES 1. Sudeshna Banerjee, a former student of the Department of English Jadavpur University, helped with this part of the survey. "I. Argyle, Michael. The Social Psychology of Leisure. London: Penguin Books, 1996. n>. Cassell, Philip ed. The Giddens Reader. London: Macmillan, 1993. Mulvey, Laura, in "Melodrama In and Out of the Home" in High Theory/ Low Culture: Analysing Popular Film and Television, ed. Colin MacCabe. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. 5. Slater, D. Concumer Culture and Modernity, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997, p.24. 6. Ibid, p.30. 7. Thompson, J.B. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997 (2nd edn) p.24. 8. Ibid. ). Slater, Don. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997, p.30. 10. Thompson, J.B. Ibid. 11. In "Opening New Channels of Conversation" India Today, 1 March, 1995.