Silencing SMS: the anatomy of ‘mCurfews’ in India

Vibodh Parthasarathi and Arshad Amanullah contextualise recent curbs on SMS messages in India and argue that such measures question the efficacy of traditional regulatory responses to emergent media technologies

Prelazak Doordarshana na digitalno emitiranje: intrigantna dinamika političkih mogućnosti

In a country with few channels occupying the terrestrial space – all of which are owned by the public broadcaster – what is the rationale behind the expensive and mandatory transition to digital terrestrial television? This paper undertakes a hard look at the incorporation of this transition in the wider moves towards digitalization by Doordarshan, India’s public broadcaster. Drawing on approaches in institutionalism that aid unraveling why certain interests get prioritized over others, the paper unmasks the official reasoning justifying the digital switchover in India. The paper infers that the marginal sections of society, for whom Doordarshan is the sole affordable TV outlet, will be the most challenged by this mandatory transition. Moreover, the move to terrestrial digital broadcasting is not guided by public interest values like enhancing diverse content, which could be the key mechanism for Doordarshan to regain the viewership it has lost to private satellite channels.Koji se motiv krije u pozadini skupe i obvezatne tranzicije u smjeru digitalne zemaljske televizije u državi s nekoliko kanala koji pokrivaju cjelokupan teritorij, a svi su u vlasništvu javnog medijskog servisa? Ovaj rad nastoji dati dubinski uvid u začetke te tranzicije i njezin širi zamah prema digitalizaciji Doordarshana, indijskog javnog medijskog servisa. Oslanjajući se na institucionalne pristupe koji pomažu razjasniti zašto određeni interesi imaju prioritet u odnosu na druge, ovaj članak razotkriva što se zapravo krije iza službenog objašnjenjenja prelaska na digitalno emitiranje u Indiji. Autori zaključuju kako će za marginalizirane društvene skupine, za koje je Doordarshan jedini pristupačan pružatelj TV usluga, ta obvezatna tranzicija predstavljati najveći izazov. Osim toga, prelazak na digitalni zemaljski prijem signala nije vođen javnim interesom koji uključuje unapređenje kvalitete sadržaja, što bi za Doordarshan mogao biti ključni mehanizam pridobivanja gledateljstva izgubljenog zbog privatnih satelitskih kanala

Debunking False News : Inside and Outside the Classroom

Non peer reviewe

The Conundrum of ‘Relevant Market’: Market Definition in India’s Complex TV Distribution Business

The universal problematic of market definition poses peculiar challenges in multi-lingual and fragmented media markets, like in India. This article engages with this problematic by taking up the case of the TV distribution market in India. Here, the rapidly expanding TV distribution business consists of two segments. The larger, wired Cable distribution segment, driven by over 1,000 large cable companies and over 50,000 last mile operators, accounts for 70 percent market share, or around 100 million TV homes. The rest 30 percent is occupied by the wireless segment, comprising 6 Direct to Home TV distributors. Amidst the heightened expansion of the TV distribution business during the last decade, we notice a series of cases at the Competition Commission of India (CCI) pertaining to ‘relevant market’. This paper provides a critical appraisal of CCI’s engagement with ideas of relevant geographical market and relevant product market during the first five years of such matters coming to it, i.e. between 2011 and 2015. Focussing on core concepts deployed in debating relevant markets, viz. substitutability and service area, the paper unravels conceptual and methodological challenges provoked by market definition in complex media landscapes such as India

Market matters: interdependencies in the Indian media economy

In the complex operations of the Indian media economy, the phrase 'media markets' requires careful consideration as an analytical concept. As a noun, 'media markets' is typically used to refer to a spread of media businesses and/or consumer sectors. Closer examination reveals that there tend to be multiple markets operating simultaneously within any media business (for products, capital, labour, audience, etc.). This implies an 'economy of markets', transacting both across media formats and with markets situated outside of the media production process. Both 'media exchanges' and 'mediated exchanges' shape the dynamics of the inter-locking markets that constitute the Indian media economy. Thus, at the categorical level, we ask several questions: What are the boundaries of media markets? Who are the key actors? How are these transactional relationships valued? With these questions in mind, this article seeks to identify points of distinction in form and geography along with critical relationships between overlapping markets and underlying interests. We propose a topology of Indian media markets, organised via three levels, with treatment of each taking into consideration the synergistic character of media markets and how interdependency shapes functional norms, rules of exchange, and the embedding of media transactions

The Digital Switchover of Doordarshan: Intriguing Dynamics of Policy Options

In a country with few channels occupying the terrestrial space – all of which are owned by the public broadcaster – what is the rationale behind the expensive and mandatory transition to digital terrestrial television? This paper undertakes a hard look at the incorporation of this transition in the wider moves towards digitalization by Doordarshan, India’s public broadcaster. Drawing on approaches in institutionalism that aid unraveling why certain interests get prioritized over others, the paper unmasks the official reasoning justifying the digital switchover in India. The paper infers that the marginal sections of society, for whom Doordarshan is the sole affordable TV outlet, will be the most challenged by this mandatory transition. Moreover, the move to terrestrial digital broadcasting is not guided by public interest values like enhancing diverse content, which could be the key mechanism for Doordarshan to regain the viewership it has lost to private satellite channels

Public spheres and the media in India

This themed issue of MIA highlights the complex nature of evolving, emerging, mediated public spheres in India, a large, imperfect democracy that is home to the most diverse mediated public spheres anywhere in the world. The history of the public sphere in India has followed a trajectory that is very different from - even at odds with - the history of this sphere as described by Habermas