Mass Communication in India

FIFTH EDITION REVISED & UPDATED

The fourth 'industrial revolution' is already upon us. Mass communication has played a key role in the emergence and advancement of each of the four industrial revolutions.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs), from book publishing, the press and telegraph to cinema, recorded music, radio, television, computers, the internet and the mobile phone, have accelerated the diffusion and adoption of the many innovations spawned by these revolutions.

Mass Communication in India begins with an introduction to mass communication theory (Chapter 1); this is followed by dedicated chapters (2 to 8) on journalism, cinema, radio, television, music, book publishing and the folk media. The remaining chapters (9 to 14) are given over to advertising and public relations, media audiences, mass communication and society, development communication, IT, telecommunications and the internet, and intellectual property rights (IPR) related to the mass media. Each chapter ends with a comprehensive list of recent publications for further reading.

This fifth edition expands, revises and updates the critical analysis of both traditional mass media and the new digital social media in the context of the changing socio-cultural and political-economic scenario in India and around the world; the analysis is from the theoretical perspectives of political economy and cultural studies.

KEVAL J. KUMAR is an adjunct professor at MICA, Ahmedabad, and visiting faculty at IIM Indore and Flame University, Pune. Formerly, he was reader at Pune University and director at Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication. He is the author of Media Education, Communication and Public Policy: An Indian Perspective and co-author of Environmentalism and the Mass Media: The North-South Divide. He has contributed entries to Wiley Blackwell's international encyclopedias of
communication and over 50 research papers to edited books and journals.

An eminent media and communications expert, Keval J. Kumar is the founder-director of RECMER (the Resource Centre for Media Education and Research), Rune, as well as a Visiting Faculty at MICA (Mudra Institute of Communication), ISB&M (International School of Business and Media), and Indira School of Communication.

He has authored seven books, including Media Education, Communication, and Public Policy: An Indian Perspective, and The Complete Guide to Mass Communication.

He earned his doctorate in Mass Communication from the University of Leicester, UK, and has taught at several institutions including, Ohio State University, USA, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany, Bahrain Training Institute, Manama, and Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, where he was also the Director. He was the Chief Advisor to the 'Media Studies' committee formed for NCERT's syllabus and textbooks, and many of his articles have been published in academic journals and books on Communication. An Associate Member of ORBICOM, the Association of UNESCO Chairs in Communication, he also Chaired the Media Education Research Section, International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), from 1998 to 2006.