1st Edition
Rethinking Media Studies Media, Meditation and Communication
This book reconsiders media studies from different philosophical and theoretical perspectives from around the world. It brings together diverse views and visions from thinkers such as Sr Aubrobindo, Jurgen Habermas, Paul Ricoeur, Pope Francis, and Satyajit Ray, among others. The authors focus on the issues of ethics, aesthetics, meditation, and communication in relation to media studies and explore the links between media and mindfulness. The volume includes case studies from India, United States, Switzerland, and Denmark and presents empirical works on new horizons of critical media studies in different fields such as American news media and creative media lab. A unique contribution, this book will be indispensable for students and researchers of journalism, communication studies, social media, behavioural sciences, sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, and development studies.
List of Figures xii
List of Tables xiii
Notes on Contributors xiv
Preface xxiii
Rethinking Media Studies: An Introduction and an Invitation 1
ANANTA KUMAR GIRI AND SANTOSH KUMAR BISWAL
PART I
Media, Meditation, and Communication 13
1 What Follows from the Nature of Human Communication for a Future Democracy as a “Communication Society”?: At the Crossing of Social–Philosophical and Spiritual Meditation 15
JOHANNES HEINRICHS
2 Media, Truth, and the Good: A Meditation on the Implications of Historico-Religious Contexts 36
ORI Z. SOLTES
3 The Message of Media, Communicative Action, and Meditative Walking: Pope Francis’ Prophetic Actions and Paul Ricoeur’s Understanding of Faith for Societal Transformation and Moral Openness 54
KURUVILLA PANDIKATTU S.J.
4 Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action: From Discourse Ethics to Spiritual Transformations 67
ANANTA KUMAR GIRI
5 Mahatma Gandhi, Media Ethics, and United Nations 91
CHRISTIAN BARTOLF
6 Significance of Integrating Nonviolent Communication in Communication Studies: An Exploration 104
VEDABHYAS KUNDU
7 Desire for Omnipresence: A Brief Introduction to a Key Conceptual Tool 117
CAMILA MOZZINI-ALISTER
8 The Development of Self in the Age of Social Media: Creating Transitional Spaces through Focused Meditative Practices 131
ANUSNIGDHA
PART II
Rethinking Media Studies: New Horizons of Theory and Practice 145
9 Unorthodox Coalitions: Co-Creative Media Initiatives for Transformative Critical Sustainability Studies 147
SUSAN THIEME AND EDA ELIF TIBET
10 Recreating Global Media through Propitious Hermeneutics Instigating Possible Earthly Prospects for Mankind 165
RUTH NEYAH V
11 Urban Society in the Films of Satyajit Ray: An Ambiguous Journey between Instrumental Rationalism and Intersubjective Reality 182
ABHISHEK KUMAR
12 Transformative Communal Media Engagement and Diversification 196
ABDULKADIR OSMAN FARAH
13 American News Media: A Shattered Institution 210
SHARAF REHMAN
14 Media, Mediation, and Transformation: The Implication of Digital Mediation on Contemporary Bombay Cinema 228
IPSITA BARAT
15 #RIP: Mediatization of Grief Over Social Media: An Exploration of Social Media Expression and Experience of Mourning 239
SURHITA BASU
PART III
Rethinking Media Studies: Further Explorations 259
16 From Printing Press to the Metaverse: The Changing Role of Technologies in Journalistic Practice 261
SUCHITRA PATNAIK
17 Social Media: A Critical Cultural Approach 271
JOHN ROBERT CLAMMER
18 Memes and Popular Culture: Indian Perspectives 280
SHOURINI BANERJEE, S. BALAGANAPATHY, AND C. VELAYUTHAM
19 Deconstructing the Idea of Manhood in Indian Television Advertisements 294
PANCHALI BHATTACHARYA AND AMRITA SATAPATHY
20 Media and Risk Communication: Building Interventional Tools During a Crisis Situation with Special Reference To Covid-19 312
TRISHA DOWERAH BARUAH
21 Sabarimala: Adversarial Culture and the Role of Media 323
TAMILSELVI NATARAJAN
22 Revisiting Gender Representation in Indian News Media 339
POOJA VERMA, SANTOSH KUMAR BISWAL, AND SUSHOBHAN PATANKAR
23 Portrayal of Dalit Women Protagonists in Geeli Pucchi and 200 Halla Ho: A Revisit of Hindi Cinema 353
CHANDRAKANT KAMBLE
24 Understanding Electronic Media, Mediation, and Behavioural Biases: A Revisit of Human Behaviour and Meditation 367
SHIBAPRASAD PARHI
25 Ethical Practices in Indian Television 381
FAKIRA MOHAN NAHAK
26 Radical Immersion: Bhakti as Ethical Medium in Contemporary India 395
UMAR NIZARUDEEN
Index 413
Biography
Ananta Kumar Giri is Professor at the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India. He has taught and done research in many universities in India and abroad. He has an abiding interest in social movements and cultural change, criticism, creativity, and contemporary dialectics of transformation, theories of self, culture, and society, and creative streams in education, philosophy, and literature. Dr Giri has written and edited around two dozen books in Odia and English, including Global Transformations: Postmodernity and Beyond (1998); Knowledge and Human Liberation (2013), Practical Spirituality and Human Development: Creative Experiments for Alternative Futures (editor, 2019), Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo (editor, 2022), and The Calling of Global Responsibility: New Initiatives in Justice, Dialogues and Planetary Realizations (2023).
Santosh Kumar Biswal is working as Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Rama Devi Women’s University, Bhubaneswar (India). He has worked in Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune (India). Previously, he has worked in Andhra Loyola College (Autonomous), Vijayawada; and Hindustan Times, New Delhi. He has co-edited books – Social and Cultural Dynamics in Indian Cinema (2020) and Holistic Approaches to Brand Culture and Communication Across Industries (2018). He has published business cases in reputed platforms including SAGE. He has published popular columns in national English dailies including The Indian Express, The Asian Age, The Telegraph, Hindustan Times, The Pioneer, The Statesman, Deccan Chronicle, and Yahoo India. He has contributed MOOCs for SWAYAM & e-PG Pathshala- MHRD, Govt. of India. Currently, he is the Associate Editor of Media Watch, a double-blind peer-reviewed media and communication journal.
“A remarkable book with an intentionally grounded approach to media in the 2020s in South Asia and beyond, and with an emphasis on media in the educational process, Rethinking Media Studies: Media, Meditation and Communication is a sorely needed study in our world today. Not least because of the proliferation of the range and definitions of media, especially social media, this transdisciplinary book probes deeply into underlying social and political issues affected by contemporary media representations. Ananta Kumar Giri and Santosh Kumar Biswal bring a rainbow of perspectives and authors to the field of media studies, including such diverse areas as media for democracy (or not) and societal transformation. Ethics, morality, biases, social construction, non-violence (increasingly important for humanity in our era), marginalized communities, self and identity, sustainability and media (an “unorthodox coalition”), hermeneutics, cinema, grief, popular culture, gender, religion (notably Bhakti), and the fall of traditional news media are engaged by the many authors here, who are themselves from multiple backgrounds and disciplines. Surprisingly, meditation is a keystone in the research reported here, with the possible paths ahead indicated by this innovative approach to a dynamic and rapidly changing field of study.”
David Blake Willis, Professor of Anthropology and Education, FieldingGraduate University, Santa Barbara, California, USA
“Rarely, we come across scholarly engagements on media and philosophy in the Indian context. Professor Ananta Kumar Giri and Dr Santosh Kumar Biswal's edited book is one such attempt which seeks to go beyond the questions of media and philosophy to provide us perspectives on ethics, aesthetics and satyagraha. This work represents a welcome addition to a world which have made an overkill of media studies without locating it in the natural contexts of history, culture, society and philosophy.”
G. Ravindran, Professor and Head, Department of Media and Communication, Central University of Tamil Nadu (CUTN), Tamil Nadu, India
