Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

In contrast to the mainstream media, alternative media or radical media gives voice to the voiceless, marginalized, under privileged section of the society. John Downing (2002) defines it as radical media as it involves social manumission with an aim to litigate power blocs, while converging the concept of achievement of ‘concientization’ through pedagogy and unfold discourse. Breaking the stereotypes, male domain media, alternate media wholly run by women sets exemplar in the society, runs with confined settings with minimal funds (usually from NGOs), less family support, these semi-literate or neo literate women with daily chores of rural life. Khabar lehariya (means spreading waves of news and information), a rural newspaper of India runs from Bundelkhand, Uttar Pradesh, run by Dalit, Muslim and marginalized women. Staff walks long in hilly areas to cover stories with smart phones (sometimes) and notepad while challenging their casted role in rural masculine society by setting their own media. This paper examines the use of ICT and digital platform used by these women working from ground zero battling with the mainstream Hindi media. The study is based on secondary data collected from different resources. Exploratory method used and collected primary data (interviews). The study also examined the knowledge of layout design of paper on computers for which they were given training time to time. Interviews was conducted with the journalists of Khabar Lehariya to get the knowledge of their ability and avenues to learn the use of digital technology and convergence of media.