VISION

The Centre visualises to develop a critical understanding of ‘culture’, ‘media’ and ‘governance’, and the interplay between them.

We recognise that such a vision, with Communication as a frame of reference, cannot be realised within existing disciplinary confines. The need for an interdisciplinary commitment arises because communication plays a pivotal role in the organisation of institutional forms, symbolic systems and patterns of everyday life throughout the Indian sub-continent.

These twin contexts have set the tone for our thrust on Communication---as an interdisciplinary science and as a specialised field of inquiry.

Our orientation leads us to reflect upon the historical and cultural nature of the media, and is not confined to, and categorized by, any medium of communication. In doing so, we combine the study of the material shaping of the media with that of the institutional organisation structuring them. Consequently, our interests concern the inter-relationship between an ideality and a materiality, and between thoughts and machines.

Immersed from cradle to grave in a consumer society as we are, it is vital to understand, interpret and criticize meanings and messages. We want to grasp how a break in theories of transmission and transportation trigger changes in human behaviour; and equally, how cultural traditions assimilate, modify or provoke technological innovation. Tracing these processes also provide a fertile ground to reflect upon the role of communication in the constitution of society.

As conveyers and purveyors of ideas, various facets of the media are often called the ‘oxygen’ of modern democracy. But we deeply aware that the relationship of the media with governance is not only functional but also transactional---between society and polity. Consequently, the Centre visualises to scrutinise both, the plethora of cultures caused by the media and ways in which the media are governed in polity.

OBJECTIVES

The Centre seeks to enhance the integration and development of interdisciplinary research into the media in India and South Asia. To this end, various programmes envisaged at CCMG will contribute in the following manner:

Methodologically, work at the Centre will examine and seek to develop new approaches both, quantitative and qualitative. This being a recurrent motif across all thematic rubrics pursued.

Archiving the measurement and analysis of media production, content and reception takes place in many organisations, but very little of such data is available to researchers, or is analysed comparatively. To address this void, the Centre aims to create an archive of media research data of value to researchers across South Asia.

Comparative perspectives across disciplines, mediascapes and regions are of utmost importance to the centre’s body of objectives. Comparative analyses will require reconciling data based on differing calibration approaches rooted in, often, contesting intellectual traditions and policy foundations.

Networking will be structured to aid the regular association of media scholars and policy analysts from varied, contiguous disciplines. Equally, the Centre will act as a focal point for dialogues between social scientists, civil society actors and media professionals who rarely are able to share a platform.