National Reflections
Religious Assertion and Media Polarization in Indian News Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Subhajit Paul, Uttam Kr. Pegu
This discourse emphasizes the political economy of the news media in India. The election of the National Democratic Alliance spearheaded by the Bharatiya Janata Party to the center in the 2014 general elections led to an indisputable shift in the middle ground of public opinion in favor of the majoritarian pro-Hindutva sentiment in India. The idea of the Nation that the Rashtriya Samaj Sevak, a right-wing organization, of which the Bharatiya Janata Party is a political arm, is based on the pretext of the othering of certain communities whom they consider unfit to be part of the cultural identity of India. Drawing on inferences from the literature it will not be wrong to comment that the news media in India owing to the influences of the present Ideological State Apparatus has been contributing to the divisive politics of the respective parties in and out of power. This study investigates the dominant discourses in the prime time debates of two English News Channels with highest Television Rating Points (TRPs) across eight weeks before the elections. The content of the debates is analyzed through the frame of Van Dijk’s Ideological Square in order to understand the process of the ‘othering’ of specific communities. The timeliness of this study is particularly significant as the 2019 general elections are scheduled in the first quarter of the year and as such vote-bank politics, innate nature of Indian politics is going to play out with political parties using the media extensively for political gains.
The Communication of Popular Culture on Royal Private Films of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in Thailand: The Transformation of Objectivity to Subjectivity Culture
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Surachai Chupaka
This article is part of research entitled, “The Communication of Popular Culture on Royal Private Films of King Bhumibol Adulyadej,” aimed at studying the content, format, and style of films in order to find attribution and value for Thai society. The film series is composed of three types of story: everyday life of the king family, royal ceremonies, and royal duties for both local and foreign visits including Japan, and Germany. The research embraced by the textual analysis of the royal private film, based on the film series conducted by King Bhumibol Adulyadej which was considered as the most popular film in Thailand during 1954˗1967. A focus group of local audiences and academics were also employed for the inquiry. Results revealed that the series had been uniquely created by using dramatic presentation accompanied with favorited signs and symbols among Thais. The scripts, scenes, sound, and music embraced with the way of popular culture, instead of royal high culture. The nationalism, modernism, localism, and humanism were embedded as a common theme of the films. In contrast with other studies, this research found the royal films were not any state apparatus for ideological hegemony. They became the great public sphere for Thai people to share their sense of belonging and identity along with the reign of their king since 1960. The films demonstrate the best practice for media academics to pave the way for connecting all social classes to promote local identity and solidarity amid cultural diversity in Thailand.
The Future of Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation in the Age of Competitive Online Television
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Egbert Mkoko, Janina Wozniak
The traditional television broadcasting industry is in a crisis in numerous countries, arising from the introduction of online television. Such online media platforms have increased to the extent that they raise an economic threat to the existing traditional broadcasters. A number of traditional media platforms have established an online presence so as to capture more audiences in every spectrum of a media outlet. Thus, market forces create pressure on conventional television broadcasters to adjust their conventional content and formats. Additionally, the digital spectrum available to Tanzania’s TV audiences, due to the normed decoders used countrywide, facilitates access to a variety of East African stations. This paper investigates the roles of Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) as a public service broadcaster, which should offer a variety of news on several available media platforms. It explores the format, structure, and intended functions of TBC news compared to other online media, as described by a sample of Tanzanian viewers. The focus of the analysis is the evening news report at TBC, compared to the formats of a selection of online and digital TV available to Tanzanian audiences. By relating these observations to TBC’s slowly emerging use of online media platforms to communicate to its audiences in digital era, the paper concludes that TBC needs to revisit the format of its news broadcasting beyond the use of traditional television format and, instead, should interactively engage its audiences on online platforms which have proved to be quicker and more effective in disseminating news.
Reality TV in Turkey: An Exploratory Analysis on the Construction of “Reality” in Turkish Reality TV
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ayşe deniz Ünan göktan
Reality has been a substantial genre for contemporary TV. It is easily consumed, and is highly preferred by producers due to lower costs. What differs reality from other genres is defined as the so-called naturalness of its characters and spontaneity of events. On the other hand, producers and participants state that a complex production process take place that blurs the boundaries between genuineness and fiction, and a hybrid form of reality is executed through reality shows. Reality TV is largely based on the global flow of formats and shaped by globalization and standardization processes. Yet different media cultures affect the nature of these programs and differences both in form and content can be observed in different contexts. This study explores the reality TV culture in Turkey, and reveals the preeminent sociocultural variables that contribute to reality construction and representation. It focuses on the structural characteristics of media sector such as financial concerns, privatization, politically imposed restrictions to media discourse, audience preferences; and demonstrates how they affect the nature of reality TV in Turkey. Accordingly, to set a conceptual frame of reality programming, overall reality shows that aired since the emergence of the first private channel are categorized and thematically analyzed. To explore how this particular genre is executed and to explore the social construction process of the “real”, semi-structured in depth interviews are conducted with media professionals and with program participants.
