The Fifth Elephant 2012

Present an approach to measure differences in Content, News Themes and Programming across TV News channels;
Discuss ways to scale up this approach and more creatively showcase its findings.

Outline

Over 10 years ago, government deregulated news broadcasting to enable a multiplicity of views being aired besides the staid and sarkari Doordarshan. Following the boom in private news channels in numerous languages, how do we evaluate scientifically, rather than bemoan rhetorically, the diversity of content provided by the Fourth Estate?
The Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia has been steering a collaborative initiative to develop a method to map content on TV news channels. This lecture will share the concerns informing this methodology, the metrics developed for such an exercise and findings from ongoing mapping of news diversity. In doing so, the lecture seeks to provoke further collaborations at all stages including measurement, visualisation and scaling up.

Speaker bio

Vibodh Parthasarathi maintains a multidisciplinary interest in media and development policy, business history of media industries, and governance of media infrastructure. At the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance (CCMG), Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, his ongoing research addresses media policy literacy, the structure of the TV news industry and the challenges of the digital switchover.
Parthasarathi serves on the Board of the Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore and the International Advisory Board of the India Media Centre, University of Westminster, London.

Links

• Concerns and Advocacy on India’s News landscape - http://commresearchinaction.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/guest-lecture-re-lecture-6-case-india/#comments
• Corporatisation of the Fourth Estate - http://www.combatlaw.org/?p=750
• Thoughts on Public Service Media - http://beyond-broadcast.tumblr.com/#/post/5841258837
• Speaker Profile - http://jmi.ac.in/aboutjamia/centres/media-governance/faculty-members/Mr_Vibodh_Parthasarathi-1620