The Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad (UoH) and Cambridge University Press hosted a book discussion with Prof Sanjay Asthana of the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) the author of “India’s State Run Media: Broadcasting, Power, and Narrative” in conversation with Prof. Vinod Pavarala, UNESCO Chair on Community Media at the Golden Threshold on 22nd June 2019.
Prof. Asthana is an alumnus of the Department of Communication, UoH and attended his classes at the Golden Threshold when the S N School of Arts and Communication, UoH was located there. The event was attended by students, alumni, media educators, media professionals and journalists.
About the Book:
India’s State-run Media presents a new perspective on broadcasting by bringing together two neglected areas of research in media studies in India – the intertwined genealogies of sovereignty, public, religion, and nation in radio and television, and the spatiotemporal dynamics of broadcasting into a single analytic inquiry. It argues that the spatio temporalities of broadcasting and the inter-relationships among the public, religion, and nation can be traced to an organizing concept that shaped India’s late colonial and postcolonial histories – sovereignty. The book contends that studies of television have glossed over the meanings, experiences, and practices of the religious in televisual narratives and viewers’ interpretations of television programs. Drawing on the philosophical writings of Paul Ricoeur and Michel Foucault, connecting their ideas with media, cultural, and religious studies, it examines cultural discourses, power relations, repertoire of meanings, social events, etc. in broadcasting in late colonial and postcolonial India.
