India: Makings of little cultural/media imperialism?

An efflorescence of the media in India during the 1990s, mainly in television, has revolutionized the South Asian mediascape. After the novelty of foreign channels wore off in the early 1990s, Indian channels consolidated their position, recorded the highest audience ratings and forced foreign channels to adopt local programming in a big way. The late 1990s added a new dimension with language-/region-specific channels displacing pan-Indian networks in localized markets, and also reaching out to the large diaspora across continents. Besides, Indian media products are increasingly being viewed in terms of cultural imperialism within South Asia along the same lines that western products were during the 1960s-70s. India's media strengths and vibrancy appear to pose some challenge to the trope of media imperialism. This article argues that the Indian media situation has the makings of ‘little cultural/media imperialism’, and calls for a multi-centric perspective, as opposed to a linear West-centric perspective, to register the rapidity of changes in this age of globalization. © 2001, SAGE PUBLICATIONS. All rights reserved

Violence as non-communication : the news differential of Kashmir and Northeast conflicts in the Indian national press

This thesis seeks to explain the contradiction of ethno-national conflicts in northeast India involving much terrorism and violence not resonating in the New Delhi-based national press. Evidence suggests that the media cover only a third of ongoing global terrorist conflicts even though terrorism and violence have long been privileged in communications research as being irresistibly newsworthy. The case study is located in India, but selectivity is a global phenomenon with only few conflicts receiving sustained media attention: Northern Ireland, Basque separatism, Quebec, Kashmir, Catalonia, or the Middle East the rest are symbolically annihilated. I propose that the sustained coverage of a conflict in the national or international contexts depends on the key variable of the socio-cultural environment in which journalists operate. A conflict is likely to figure regularly in media content only if journalists see it as affecting or involving what they socially and culturally perceive to be the 'we' a similar conflict involving the socio-cultural 'they' may be routinely ignored or extended ad hoc coverage, even if it involves much violence and terrorism. The 'we'-'they' binary, used here as a socio-cultural concept, also connects with political debates about multiculturalism, recognition, citizenship and Orientalism. Located in the discourse of production of news, this study establishes that terrorism and violence as part of a conflict may not guarantee news coverage. Kashmir and northeast conflicts demonstrate several commonalities, but only the Kashmir conflict is routinely selected for sustained and prominent coverage. By mainly interviewing journalists, it is established that the northeast is routinely seen to involve and affect the socio-cultural 'they' hence its systemised low status in the news discourse compared with Kashmir, which is perceived to be located at the core of the 'we'. This news differential also suggests the existence of 'sub-Orients' within the Orient, even Orientalism within the Orient

'Murdochization' of the Indian press: From by-line to bottom-line

The Rupert Murdoch factor in the Western media has been widely debated. However, less attention has been focused on his influence in non-Western locales where he does not have an overt presence. His vision has transformed the press in India - a country with a diverse and rich press - that was at the forefront of its freedom struggle. Fifty-five years after independence, India opened its press for foreign participation in 2002; however, Murdoch has been omnipresent in its press since the late 1980s. Leading Indian newspapers adopted his market-oriented approach, which raised profits but also narrowed the editorial space for social issues. Indian commentators lament the Murdoch-inspired changes - often referred to as 'dumbing down' - but it is also true that the press has since increased its circulation and democratised local cultural and political networks. This article briefly tracks the shifts and suggests that a balance between the marketing and editorial needs to be struck for the press to continue to play a key role in the world's largest democracy