Biswajit Das and Debendra Prasad Majhi (Eds). Caste, Communication and Power. New Delhi, India: SAGE Publications, 2021, 365 pp., ₹895. ISBN 9789391370824 (hardcover).
Virtual engagement of lives has been made possible with the advent of social media. Almost 80% of the day are spent virtually on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, etc. Usage of social media to connect to and communicate with the ones we care about is always healthy, termed as social networking. Social dysfunction occurs when the constant communication leads to the point where our real or offline life gets replaced by virtual or online life. There is a slight boundary between social networking and social dysfunction. When social networking is advantageous, social dysfunction affects emotional well-being. When emotional well-being is affected, many users experience a compulsion to dissociate from the real world as they find virtual world, full of fantasy and enjoyment. When the Internet was created, perhaps no one was aware of its potential. More than the convenience for sharing of information it has brought the world so close to crumbling the geographical boundaries. The more people-to-people communication is, the more is the strengthening of relationships, bonds grow stronger with ‘more’ social media platforms. Being on ‘more’ social media platforms has become a benchmark for living amidst the younger generation. Either as an activity of happiness or as an activity of pleasure, users tend to use social media at varying levels. This paper aims to conceptualize the the intricacies of social media in young lives and to discern whether their association is happiness or pleasure activity. The research method of this paper has a mixed-methods research design combining data from structured survey with information outputs from in-depth interviews.
Most of the studies on children’s programming conducted in America or India, indicating an unbalanced and stereotypical gender representation, remain limited to those on older children. The present study explores if cartoon shows for preschoolers resort to the counter-hegemonic portrayal of male/female characters, and if thereby have any scope for representation of gender fluidity within it. Consequently, it also attempts to discern the ways in which interpersonal relationships between the protagonists, and between the protagonist(s) and the secondary character(s) portray any ‘dominant/submissive’ dichotomies. Drawing on Bandura’s ‘Social Learning Theory’ and de Beauvoir’s notion of the social construction of women as the ‘other’, this study presents the results of textual analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis of a popular Russian cartoon show ‘Masha and the Bear’ (M&TB) telecast on Nick Jr. The study findings indicate more gender-sensitive representation in the show for preschoolers than those for the older children. Bearing the tropes of Soviet Russian egalitarian and cultural traits, the characters of M&TB portray non-binary gender roles compared to their American or Indian counterparts.
It has perhaps never happened before that presidents or prime ministers of almost all countries have spoken to their citizens in so short a time on the same topic—COVID-19. When the scientific community did not have correct answers or adequate explanations for the questions that people and patients were asking, world leaders took up the gauntlet and spoke to their citizens. What did they tell them? What facts did they choose to dwell on, and how did they present them? How did they provide comfort and support? What offer did they make? We selected the speeches of leaders from five countries with the highest (nominal) GDP—the USA, China, Japan, Germany and India, and analysed it using a qualitative method—framing analysis. All the speeches except that of China’s were relatively short and contained four dominant frames: prevention-protection, the other, solidarity and hope and comfort. However, each leader’s address had a unique frame. The manner in which the leaders framed their arguments and announcements shows how they understand and construct the identity of their fellow citizens.
This exploratory study analyses growing pressures on faculty in Central Asia to publish research in high-quality international journals and how faculty attempt to meet publishing mandates from institutions and ministries motivated to join world rankings. This is important because of the scarcity of Central Asian scholarship in peer-reviewed journalism and mass communication (J&MC) journals due to the exceptional challenges faculty face publishing their work internationally. This study, the first of its kind for international J&MC scholarship, draws on a survey and qualitative interviews with faculty who presented research on J&MC topics at one or more Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) conferences from 2015 to 2019. The study selected CESS because it is one of the few academic and international venues focused on the region. It found that a third of conference papers were subsequently published. Among paper authors who did not publish, many cite heavy teaching and administrative workloads, weak methodological and theoretical exposure, and unfamiliarity with international standards of research writing. The article discusses the findings in relation to the growing number of predatory journals, escalating demands on faculty to publish internationally, Western-centric disciplinary journals, and insufficient research support from their institutions and ministries.
