Television Publics in South Asia: Mediated Politics and Culture

Television has a prime role to play in the formation of discursive domains in the everyday life of South Asian publics. This book explores various television media practices, social processes, mediated political experiences and everyday cultural compositions from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

With the help of country-specific case studies, it captures a broad range of themes which foreground the publics and their real-life experiences of television in the region. The chapters in this book discuss gendered television spaces, women seeking solace from television in pandemic, the taboo in digital TV dramas, television viewership and localizing publics, changing viewership from television to OTT, news and public perception of death, redefining ’the national’, theatrical television and post-truth television news, among other key issues.

Rich in ethnographic case studies, this volume will be a useful resource for scholars and researchers of media and communication studies, journalism, digital media, South Asian studies, cultural studies, sociology and social anthropology.

S M Shameem Reza teaches media and communication at the University of Dhaka. He held Asia Fellowship at the Institute of Malaysia and International Studies (IKMAS), University Kebangsaan Malaysia. As adjunct and guest faculty, he has contributed to a number of universities and academic programmes including the Regional Masters in Media Communication and Journalism, in collaboration with the University of Dhaka, Nepal College of Journalism, University of the Punjab, and Oslo University College. Dr Reza’s recent publications include ＂Revisiting Children’s Participation in Television: Implications for Digital Media Rights＂ In The Routledge Companion to Digital Media and Children. London: Routledge (2021), ＂The Politico-commercial Nexus and the Broadcast Policy Reform in Bangladesh＂ In Media as Politics in South Asia, London: Routledge (2017). Some of his articles and chapters also include ＂A Political Economy of Television in Bangladesh＂ In Bangladesh’s Changing Mediascape: Form State Control to Market Forces. Bristol: Intellect (2013), ＂Governing Bangladesh Broadcasting System: Scopes for Policy Reform＂, Social Science Review. Vol. 29, No. 1 (2012), ＂From Elite Perceptions to Marginal Voices: Community Radio in Bangladesh＂ In Community Radio in the 21st Century. Oxford: Peter Lang (2012), ＂View from Bangladesh: Preparing for Community Radio＂ In Peoples’ Voices, Peoples’ Empowerment. Singapore: AMIC (2012), ＂Campaigns on Local Environmental Issues in Bangladesh Newspapers＂, Media Asia, Vol. 38, No. 4.

Ratan Kumar Roy is Assistant Professor of the School of General Education at BRAC University, Bangladesh. He is a Charles Wallace Bangladesh Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellow at LSE South Asia Centre, UK. Dr Roy worked as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He was a residency research fellow in Asia Culture Centre, Korea in 2018. He received Doctoral award from the Department of Sociology, South Asian University (A University Established by SAARC Nations), New Delhi. His book titled Television in Bangladesh: News and Audiences has been published by Routledge, London, 2021. Besides, he has authored some book chapters and articles in reputed journals. Currently he is working the Chief Coordinator of International Research Center, SIMEC Institute of Technology, Dhaka. Dr. Roy’s research and teaching interests are anthropology of media, visual culture and communication, media and social movement, communication research methods, media and culture in contemporary South Asia, media ethnography and digital media culture.