This book explores the transformation of Indian media in the context of two major developments: globalisation (which Sociologist Anthony Giddens terms as being ‘revolutionary’) and advances in communication technologies. It is rich in empirical details of how the Indian media has evolved in the past two decades, particularly in the context of potential to transform, construct and nurture particular identities in response to globalisation. The study of the transformation of Indian media is significant because not only has globalisation allowed access to a host of things hitherto represented as ‘foreign’ to Indian culture by the media, but it has also opened the floodgates for foreign media.
Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, this book looks at the role of media in purveying political, economic and cultural identities, the current definitions of ‘we’, ‘they’, and the ‘other’, and how the ‘other’ is perceived in contemporary India. The discussions cover all forms of media, that is, newspaper, films, radio, television and online media, along with media policy and other economic challenges facing the media.
Maya Ranganathan currently teaches media and international communication at Macquarie University, Sydney. She was awarded a PhD by Monash University, Victoria, for her work on online nationalism in 2004 and completed a two-year postdoctoral project on Sri Lankan Tamil online nationalism in 2009. She is the author of Eelam Online: The Tamil Diaspora and War in Sri Lanka (2011). Her research spans media in South Asia and currently revolves around Indian media and the ways in which it has adapted to the changes wrought by globalisation. She has published widely in scholarly journals, such as Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Continuum and South Asia, and is a regular contributor to the South Asian media analysis web site Thehoot.org. She has over a decade’s experience as a journalist in the New Indian Express, Chennai, India.
Usha M. Rodrigues is currently teaching journalism across multiple platforms including new participatory media technologies at Deakin University, Melbourne. She received her PhD from the University of Queensland in 2006. Her PhD thesis, entitled The Impact of Private and Foreign Television on News and Audiences: 1991–2001, was a landmark study of the changing nature of Indian television industry since 1991 when the Indian government embarked on economic liberalisation, ensuing the process of globalisation of the Indian economy in general and the Indian news media in particular. She co-authored Indian Media in a Globalised World (2010) with Dr Maya Ranganathan. She has also co-edited Youth, Media and Culture in the Asia Pacific Region (2008) with Dr Belinda Smaill. Dr Rodrigues has published in scholarly journals such as Media International Australia and Australian Journalism Review. She is a regular contributor to the media watch web site Thehoot.org and has published media commentaries on the Australian ABC and The Age online sites. Her current research interests are Indian news media, new media technologies and their impact on journalism practices and citizen journalism.
