Media in a fast-changing India, televangelism in several religions, ICTs and public communication access, media and the Maoist movements India... These are just some of the research projects and interests of Pradip Thomas, also candidate for one of the two Vice-President positions in IAMCR 2012-2016. He currently works at the University of Queensland.
by Pradip Thomas
University of Queensland
As someone who studied at the Centre for Mass Communications Research, University of Leicester in the 1980s, I have rather thoroughly been bitten by the political economy bug and my work in the area of religion, communication rights, the digital, communication and social change since then has been shaped by conversations with this tradition. I have always been intrigued by the power of structures to shape reality and understandings and the power of ordinary people to resist the powers that be and shape just futures.
During the last three years I have been involved in researching and writing about media power and people power in India and this has turned into a three book project with Sage – on political economy, communication rights and the digital. For my money, India is home to the most diverse media landscape to be found anywhere in the world and so at any given time there are any number of media related issues that requires monitoring and research.
There is more to Indian media than Bollywood. The sheer diversity of media – close to 800 television channels, 70,000+ registered publications, a nascent community media scenario and any number of social movements offers many research pathways. The writer V S Naipaul once described India as a ‘land of a million mutinies’ and I have been fascinated with some of these mutinies – most recently movements related to Free and Open Source Software and Public Service Software but also the Right to Information Movement that has enabled ‘Voice’ and provided the means for people to be involved in the project of substantive democracy.
Having also worked at the then London, now Toronto-based World Association for Christian Communication (WACC) for a number of years, issues related to religion and media have also fascinated me and I continue to work on issues related to the commodification of religion and, in particular, televangelism. I have been involved in co-editing a volume on Global and Local expressions of televangelism with chapters on Islamic and Hindu televangelism along with studies of the more ubiquitous, Christian televangelism.
At the University of Queensland, Brisbane, where I currently teach, I am one of the co-directors of the Centre for Communication and Social Change. We run a fully fledged Masters Programme in this area and have more than twenty research higher degree students working on all sorts of issues related to social change. These numbers are growing by the year and it is good to see another generation of students who are ready to make a difference, who think critically and who see the need to change our world.
If there is an area that I would like to work on and do research in – it is on the relationship between Maoist movements and the media in India although I suspect that my university will not grant me ‘ethical clearance’ to explore this area. I do look forward to contributing to the life of IAMCR – an organisation that has been dear to me. It really is a privilege to follow in the foot-steps of the many pioneers who have made IAMCR what it is today and whose understanding of the relationship between communication, culture and society continues to inspire my writings.