Media as Politics in South Asia (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series) PDF
Preview Media as Politics in South Asia (Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series)
Media as Politics in South Asia The dramatic expansion of the media and communications sector since the 1990s has brought South Asia on the global scene as a major center for media produc- tion and consumption. This book is the first overview of media expansion and its political ramifications in South Asia during these years of economic reforms. From the puzzling liberalization of media under military dictatorship in Paki- stan to the brutal killings of journalists in Sri Lanka, and the growing influence of social media in riots and political protests in India, Nepal and Bangladesh, the chapters analyze some of the most important developments in the media fields of contemporary South Asia. Attentive to colonial histories as well as connections within and beyond South Asia in the age of globalization, the chapters combine theoretically grounded studies with original empirical research to unravel the dynamics of media as politics. The chapters are organized around the three frames of participation, control and friction. They bring to the fore the double- edged nature of publicity and containment inherent in media, thereby advancing postcolonial perspectives on the massive media transformation underway in South Asia and the global South more broadly. For the first time bringing together the cultural, regulatory and social aspects of media expansion in a single perspective, this interdisciplinary book fills the need for overview and analytical studies on South Asian media. Sahana Udupa is Professor of Media Anthropology, Ludwig Maximilian Uni- versity, Munich, and Senior Research Partner at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Germany. She researches and teaches journalism cultures, digital media politics, global urbanization and media policy. She is the author of Making News in Global India: Media, Publics, Politics. Stephen D. McDowell is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Communication and Information and is John H. Phipps Professor in the School of Communication at Florida State University, USA. His research and teaching interests address news content, new communication technologies and communi- cation policies in South Asia and North America. His first book is on India’s communication policies, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change: A Political Economy of India’s Communications Sector. Routledge Contemporary South Asia Series 106 Devotional Islam in 113 India’s Approach to Contemporary South Asia Development Cooperation Shrines, Journeys and Wanderers Edited by Sachin Chaturvedi and Edited by Michel Boivin and Anthea Mulakala Rémy Delage 114 Education and Society in 107 Women and Resistance in Bhutan Contemporary Bengali Cinema Tradition and modernisation A Freedom Incomplete Chelsea M. Robles Srimati Mukherjee 115 Sri Lanka’s Global Factory 108 Islamic NGOs in Bangladesh Workers Development, Piety and (Un) Disciplined Desires Neoliberal Governmentality and Sexual Struggles in a Mohammad Musfequs Salehin Post- Colonial Society Sandya Hewamanne 109 Ethics in Governance in India Bidyut Chakrabarty 116 Migration of Labour in India 110 Popular Hindi Cinema The Squatter Settlements of Aesthetic Formations of the Seen Delhi and Unseen Himmat Singh Ratnoo Ronie Parciack 111 Activist Documentary Film in 117 Gender, Nation and Popular Pakistan Film in India The Emergence of a Cinema of Globalizing Muscular Accountability Nationalism Rahat Imran Sikata Banerjee 112 Culture, Health and 118 Media as Politics in South Development in South Asia Asia Arsenic Poisoning in Bangladesh Edited by Sahana Udupa and M. Saiful Islam Stephen D. McDowell Media as Politics in South Asia Edited by Sahana Udupa and Stephen D. McDowell First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Selection and editorial material, Sahana Udupa and Stephen D. McDowell; individual chapters, the contributors. The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Names: Udupa, Sahana, 1977– editor. | McDowell, Stephen D., 1958– editor. Title: Media as politics in South Asia / [edited by] Sahana Udupa and Stephen D. McDowell. Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Routledge contemporary South Asia series ; 118 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016054613| ISBN 9781138289437 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315267159 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Mass media–Political aspects–South Asia. | Mass media policy–South Asia. Classification: LCC P95.82.S636 M44 2017 | DDC 302.23/09549–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016054613 ISBN: 978-1-138-28943-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-26715-9 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Contents Notes on contributors vii 1 Introduction: beyond the “public sphere” 1 SAHANA UDUPA AND STEPHEN D. M cDOWELL PARt I Participation 19 2 Small frame politics: public performance in the digital age 21 ETHIRAJ GABRIEL DATTATREYAN 3 Envisioning Pakistan: urban ‘awami’ space, travel and the media 36 CHLOE A. GILL- KHAN 4 Media and minority ethnic political identity in Nepal 46 NATALIE GREENLAND AND MICHAEL WILMORE 5 Pimps, paranoia and politics: narratives of masculinities and femininities in the Nepali blogosphere 61 SANJEEv UPRETY PARt II Control 75 6 Why did a military dictator liberalize the electronic media in Pakistan? 77 KIRAN HASSAN vi Contents 7 Re- inventing normality in Sri Lanka’s media systems 95 WILLIAM CRAWLEY AND DAvID PAGE 8 the politico-c ommercial nexus and the broadcast policy reform in Bangladesh 110 ANIS RAHMAN, S. M. SHAMEEM REzA AND FAHMIDUL HAq 9 Writing, typing and scanning: distributive justice and the politics of visibility in the era of e-g overnance 127 URSULA RAO PARt III Friction 141 10 two faces of Sri Lankan media: censorship and resistance 143 GEHAN GUNATILLEKE 11 Politics of clicking: blogs and political participation in South Asia 160 DEv NATH PATHAK AND RATAN KUMAR ROY 12 Mediating claims to Buddha’s birthplace and Nepali national identity 176 DANNAH DENNIS 13 Viral video: mobile media, riot and religious politics 190 SAHANA UDUPA 14 Closing comments: media as politics and mediated politics 206 STEPHEN D. M cDOWELL AND SAHANA UDUPA Index 215 Contributors William Crawley is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Common- wealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He was a broadcaster, producer and editor in the BBC World Service for over 20 years with responsibilities for BBC radio broadcast services in South Asian lan- guages. He is the co- author of Satellites over South Asia: Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest (Sage, 2001) and co- editor of Embattled Media: Democracy, Governance and Reform in Sri Lanka (Sage, 2015). He taught at St Stephens College, Delhi University from 1964 to 1967 and was Secretary of the Charles Wallace Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma Trusts from 2002 to 2007. He was De Carle Lecturer at Otago University New zealand in 2007. Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan is a visual anthropologist. He finished his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. His research in Delhi examined how the immigrant youth from Nepal, Nigeria, Somalia and Afghanistan are assimilating into the developing city. As a part of this research, he made a documentary film called Waiting Subjects: Cry Out Loud based on the Nigerian, Somalian, Cameroonian, Ugandan, Ivorian and Con- golese settlement in Khirkee (Malviya Nagar). He worked with young resi- dents of Khirkee, Hassan Abdi, Ahmed Ex, Young Hafes, Abdullahi Idris and Abdul Abdulkhadir, who he brought on board to co-d irect. Dannah Dennis is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of vir- ginia. Her dissertation examines changing narratives of national identity in the midst of Nepal’s constitutional transition to secularism and federalism. She has published articles on the gendered and regional exclusions that shape Nepali citizenship law and on the politics of road- building and infrastructure in Kathmandu, along with a piece of ethnographic fiction exploring the effects of international migration on Nepali middle-c lass families. Chloe A. Gill-K han is a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, Aga Khan University, London. Previously, she was a post- doctoral research fellow at the University of South Australia. Chloe is cur- rently completing a monograph that examines British and French literatures viii Contributors of the ex- colonial diasporas (British Asians and Franco- Maghrebians). Her research interests include Pakistani culture and politics, European colonial- ism, decolonization and the postcolonial, comparative literature and philosophy. Natalie Greenland is an anthropologist who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Adelaide. Natalie’s research interests are predominantly in youth engagement with development via communication consumption and production practices in South Asia. Natalie has worked in the South Austral- ian NGO sector since 2011 in policy, advocacy, research and evaluation. Natalie has contributed to policy development, legislative change, and led a number of evaluations in the areas of alcohol and other drug use, homeless- ness and family violence. Natalie currently leads evaluation at a large South Australian NGO. Gehan Gunatilleke is the Research Director of verité Research. He teaches post- graduate courses in human rights, democratization and development at the University of Colombo and the Open University of Sri Lanka. He is also the author of The Right to Information: A Guide for Advocates (Sri Lanka Press Institute/UNESCO, 2015) and a contributing author of Embattled Media: Democracy, Governance and Reform in Sri Lanka (Sage Publications, 2015). Gehan is currently a Commonwealth scholar at New College, Univer- sity of Oxford. Fahmidul Haq is Professor at the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka. He earned his Ph.D. in film studies from the University of Science, Malaysia. His areas of interests include film studies, new media, citizen journalism and political economy of communication. He is the lead editor of Jogajog, a prominent communication journal in Bangla- desh published in Bangla. Kiran Hassan is a communications scholar with expertise in Pakistan’s media, domestic politics and foreign policy. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. She has served as Pakistan expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and has taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Hassan has previously worked as a senior research associate at South Asia Free Media Association and a senior communication specialist with the Punjab Government in Paki- stan. Prior to that, she contributed to various diaspora research projects with the BBC World Service in London. Stephen D. McDowell’s research teaching interests address news content, new communication technologies and communication policies in South Asia and North America. He has written a book on India’s communication policies, Globalization, Liberalization and Policy Change: A Political Economy of India’s Communications Sector (St. Martin’s and Macmillan, 1997), and held fellowships with the Canadian federal Department of Communications in Contributors ix Ottawa (1987–1989), with the Shastri Indo- Canadian Institute (1989–1990), and a Congressional Fellowship supported by the American Political Science Association in Washington, DC (1994–1995). He is John H. Phipps Professor in the School of Communication at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. David Page is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London. He was a broad- caster, producer and editor in the BBC World Service for over 20 years with responsibilities for BBC radio broadcast services in South Asian languages. He is the co- author of Satellites over South Asia: Broadcasting, Culture and the Public Interest (Sage, 2001) and co-e ditor of Embattled Media: Demo- cracy, Governance and Reform in Sri Lanka (Sage, 2015). He taught at Edwardes College, Peshawar from 1966 to 1967 and is the author of Prelude to Partition (Oxford University Press, 1982). Dev Nath Pathak teaches sociology at South Asian University, New Delhi. He obtained a doctorate in sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University. His current research interests include anthropology of performance, communication and culture, and South Asian studies He edited Intersections in Sociology, Art and Art History (Akar). One of his edited books, Performative Communication: Culture and Politics in South Asia, is forthcoming. He is currently the reviews editor of Society and Culture in South Asia (journal of the Department of Sociology, South Asian University, published by Sage India). He was Charles Wallace Fellow (2015) at queen’s University Belfast. Anis Rahman is Instructor and Ph.D. candidate at the School of Communica- tion at Simon Fraser University. His doctoral research explores media demo- cratization, policy reform and journalism issues in Bangladesh. Rahman holds master’s degrees from the Goldsmiths, University of London (Television Journalism) and the University of Rajshahi (Mass Communication). He received a Chevening Scholarship from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK. He has published in the Asian Journal of Communication, Journ- alism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Eptic online journals. He has also published an open access book: Public Service Media Initiatives in the Global South (edited with Gregory Ferrell Lowe). Ursula Rao is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Her current research focuses on e-g overnance and the social con- sequences of biometric technology in India. She is completing a manuscript on “Biometric Futures: Rescaling Governance through New Bodily Discip- lines.” In the past Rao has written on Hindi and English journalism, urban space and ritual theory. Some of her recent English- language publications are News as Cultures: Journalistic Practices and the Remaking of Indian Leader- ship Traditions (Berghahn, 2010) and “Talking Back to the State: Citizens’ Engagement after Neoliberal Reform in India” (Social Anthropologist 22: 410–427).
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