Dr. Radha Bathran | Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tamilnadu, India (original) (raw)
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Papers by Dr. Radha Bathran
Mass Communicator, 2016
Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a ph... more Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a physiotherapy student in Delhi brought platforms/people on a platform to voice their opinion about security of women in our society. The Indian mainstream media did not disclose the identity of the victim to the possible extent and the entire nation stood in solidarity with the victim's family. Over the years, there has been an increasing number of such cases of violence against women reported by the press, still if it is to be asked if they received the same standards of ethical concerns in press coverage, then the answer is a big no. Browsing over the archives one could see the difference in reporting, cases of violence against women being more biased and gender insensitive when compared with the Delhi incident. This paper tries to see the differences in reporting similar cases of violence against women that occurred during the Delhi case and how these cases were reported even during that same time.
News on violence against women in India is found hitting the headlines almost on a day to day bas... more News on violence against women in India is found hitting the headlines almost on a day to day basis in the regional language dailies in India. Among several forms of violence that exist in the society, the ones that are ‘abnormal’ or the nature of violence that leads to death, the one that consists of sensational aspects, the ones that are more brutal in nature alone gain newsworthiness. Most often, rape, sexual harassments, acid attacks and murders take the lead leaving behind dowry harassments, dowry deaths, domestic violence and other gender based violence as normal day to day occurrences. The news highlights on the above forms of violence serve to boost newspaper sales creating mere curiosity and titillating effects owing to the choice of texts in the news reports. In addition, the photographs of the victims and perpetrators are given in color with disturbing headlines as elements of sensationalism. Hence it is essential to understand the above discourse in terms of exploring what these newspapers want to communicate to the larger society on the crucial social issue of violence against women? What are the ethical standards that govern reporting in such cases? Overall, how is the context of gender discrimination prevalent in the society dealt by these regional language news papers? This research is a systematic academic search into the above questions using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with a feminist perspective exploring the regional press coverage on violence against women.
Next to China, India is importing most of the smart phones to it population towards a digital rev... more Next to China, India is importing most of the smart phones to it population towards a digital revolution. Information Technology has brought vast changes in the country and it plays a vital role in the development of urban and rural areas of the country. It has a great influence on development of economic and social lives of the people. E-ration card, e- certificates, e-employment, e-health, e-education, etc. are the pillars of e-governance in India. Peoples day to day life has improved by the use of digital technologies worldwide but simultaneously it divides the world digitally i.e. information rich and information poor. Benefits of Information Technology in India are remarkably low when compared to other developing countries, particularly in rural and remote areas. It is still worse in tribal areas where development has to reach in many areas. This paper discuss about the challenges faced by the tribes in the village ‘Barkur’, in Erode district to assess the access of information technology for their needs and development. Barkur is the tribal village located at Erode district in the state of Tamil Nadu. Further, this paper tries to explore the nature of use of digital devices among tribal people and the reasons for their usage. This would enable us to understand if there is a real digital divide or digital inclusion of the tribes using survey method and in-depth interviews to understand the digital use of the tribal people.
Online news consumption is growing rapidly in our country. According to the latest ComScore repo... more Online news consumption is growing rapidly in our country. According to the latest ComScore report in 2013, India’s daily readership of online news and information has increased significantly. Research shows that it has jumped by 34 percent in the past one year and the total user visits in month of August 2013 were 364.6 million as compared to 259.7 million in the same month last year. We are able to see that the increased online access to online news is also enhancing the participation of news readers via different forms of interaction tools like commenting, sharing and complaining. The nature of reader’s comments on issues of social importance, like crime on women, enables us to understand the nature of public discourse on the issue. Readers are not only relying on the news writer’s views but also scroll down to know what similar readers have felt and expressed regarding a particular issue. This surely serves as an online platform for public debates and opinion formation. This study is to identify the online news commenting patterns in the issue of Delhi rape case of the medical college student in December 2012. This paper tries to analyze the readers commenting patterns in the above issue. Using content analysis this paper tries to understand what such commenting patterns communicate to the larger society on rape in India by studying the online The Hindu news website. Theoretically it tries to understand the discourse on rape in the virtual public sphere or new public sphere in the Indian context.
Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a ph... more Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a physiotherapy student in Delhi brought platforms/people on a platform to voice their opinion about security of women in our society. The Indian mainstream media did not disclose the identity of the victim to the possible extent and the entire nation stood in solidarity with the victim's family. Over the years, there has been an increasing number of such cases of violence against women reported by the press, still if it is to be asked if they received the same standards of ethical concerns in press coverage, then the answer is a big no. Browsing over the archives one could see the difference in reporting, cases of violence against women being more biased and gender insensitive when compared with the Delhi incident. This paper tries to see the differences in reporting similar cases of violence against women that occurred during the Delhi case and how these cases were reported even during that same time. In this study a critical discourse analysis of the local press coverage of murder of a school going girl in the southern part of India in Tamilnadu, has done. This paper tries to unfold the discourse on rape and murder of the girl by describing and interpreting the language of the news reports of the regional press. In the Indian context the national and international level research deliberations on news media representation of violence against women are limited to the national language Hindi and English dailies. Studies on regional local language newspapers are limited at the regional level and are yet to reach the national or international pool of research. Thus it is vital to understand the discourse of the regional local language newspapers on violence against women. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, Tamilnadu is among the top five states in cases of crime against women. Dinathanthi is a leading newspaper with fifths position in circulation nationally, with an All India Readership (AIR) of 8,156,000 in 2014.
Constant exposure to violent scenes as forms of entertainment can normalise violence as part of e... more Constant exposure to violent scenes as forms of entertainment can normalise violence as part of everyday lives. Onscreen violence dehumanises women and this can change the way women in our families and around us are viewed. All women have the right to be respected as human beings. Narratives which reflect the real life contributions and struggles of women without exaggerations are the need of the hour, say B. Radha and P. Govindaraju
News media shapes our opinions and beliefs on issues of social importance. Especially, when it co... more News media shapes our opinions and beliefs on issues of social importance. Especially, when it comes to issues relating to violence against women there are several studies on the discourse of the news media. Yet very few studies have opted to see the reception of such news reports by its readers. Studies have observed journalistic frames that has been continuously criticised for its lack of gender sensitiveness and overwhelming sensationalism in reporting cases of violence against women especially sexual violence. This paper tries to explore the reception of news on issues relating to violence against women and if framing of such news has any influence on the news reception.
Drafts by Dr. Radha Bathran
A review on the Tamil language film Aramm – from a feminist perspective
Mass Communicator, 2016
Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a ph... more Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a physiotherapy student in Delhi brought platforms/people on a platform to voice their opinion about security of women in our society. The Indian mainstream media did not disclose the identity of the victim to the possible extent and the entire nation stood in solidarity with the victim's family. Over the years, there has been an increasing number of such cases of violence against women reported by the press, still if it is to be asked if they received the same standards of ethical concerns in press coverage, then the answer is a big no. Browsing over the archives one could see the difference in reporting, cases of violence against women being more biased and gender insensitive when compared with the Delhi incident. This paper tries to see the differences in reporting similar cases of violence against women that occurred during the Delhi case and how these cases were reported even during that same time.
News on violence against women in India is found hitting the headlines almost on a day to day bas... more News on violence against women in India is found hitting the headlines almost on a day to day basis in the regional language dailies in India. Among several forms of violence that exist in the society, the ones that are ‘abnormal’ or the nature of violence that leads to death, the one that consists of sensational aspects, the ones that are more brutal in nature alone gain newsworthiness. Most often, rape, sexual harassments, acid attacks and murders take the lead leaving behind dowry harassments, dowry deaths, domestic violence and other gender based violence as normal day to day occurrences. The news highlights on the above forms of violence serve to boost newspaper sales creating mere curiosity and titillating effects owing to the choice of texts in the news reports. In addition, the photographs of the victims and perpetrators are given in color with disturbing headlines as elements of sensationalism. Hence it is essential to understand the above discourse in terms of exploring what these newspapers want to communicate to the larger society on the crucial social issue of violence against women? What are the ethical standards that govern reporting in such cases? Overall, how is the context of gender discrimination prevalent in the society dealt by these regional language news papers? This research is a systematic academic search into the above questions using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with a feminist perspective exploring the regional press coverage on violence against women.
Next to China, India is importing most of the smart phones to it population towards a digital rev... more Next to China, India is importing most of the smart phones to it population towards a digital revolution. Information Technology has brought vast changes in the country and it plays a vital role in the development of urban and rural areas of the country. It has a great influence on development of economic and social lives of the people. E-ration card, e- certificates, e-employment, e-health, e-education, etc. are the pillars of e-governance in India. Peoples day to day life has improved by the use of digital technologies worldwide but simultaneously it divides the world digitally i.e. information rich and information poor. Benefits of Information Technology in India are remarkably low when compared to other developing countries, particularly in rural and remote areas. It is still worse in tribal areas where development has to reach in many areas. This paper discuss about the challenges faced by the tribes in the village ‘Barkur’, in Erode district to assess the access of information technology for their needs and development. Barkur is the tribal village located at Erode district in the state of Tamil Nadu. Further, this paper tries to explore the nature of use of digital devices among tribal people and the reasons for their usage. This would enable us to understand if there is a real digital divide or digital inclusion of the tribes using survey method and in-depth interviews to understand the digital use of the tribal people.
Online news consumption is growing rapidly in our country. According to the latest ComScore repo... more Online news consumption is growing rapidly in our country. According to the latest ComScore report in 2013, India’s daily readership of online news and information has increased significantly. Research shows that it has jumped by 34 percent in the past one year and the total user visits in month of August 2013 were 364.6 million as compared to 259.7 million in the same month last year. We are able to see that the increased online access to online news is also enhancing the participation of news readers via different forms of interaction tools like commenting, sharing and complaining. The nature of reader’s comments on issues of social importance, like crime on women, enables us to understand the nature of public discourse on the issue. Readers are not only relying on the news writer’s views but also scroll down to know what similar readers have felt and expressed regarding a particular issue. This surely serves as an online platform for public debates and opinion formation. This study is to identify the online news commenting patterns in the issue of Delhi rape case of the medical college student in December 2012. This paper tries to analyze the readers commenting patterns in the above issue. Using content analysis this paper tries to understand what such commenting patterns communicate to the larger society on rape in India by studying the online The Hindu news website. Theoretically it tries to understand the discourse on rape in the virtual public sphere or new public sphere in the Indian context.
Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a ph... more Research Violence against women in India is a continuing social phenomenon. The gang rape of a physiotherapy student in Delhi brought platforms/people on a platform to voice their opinion about security of women in our society. The Indian mainstream media did not disclose the identity of the victim to the possible extent and the entire nation stood in solidarity with the victim's family. Over the years, there has been an increasing number of such cases of violence against women reported by the press, still if it is to be asked if they received the same standards of ethical concerns in press coverage, then the answer is a big no. Browsing over the archives one could see the difference in reporting, cases of violence against women being more biased and gender insensitive when compared with the Delhi incident. This paper tries to see the differences in reporting similar cases of violence against women that occurred during the Delhi case and how these cases were reported even during that same time. In this study a critical discourse analysis of the local press coverage of murder of a school going girl in the southern part of India in Tamilnadu, has done. This paper tries to unfold the discourse on rape and murder of the girl by describing and interpreting the language of the news reports of the regional press. In the Indian context the national and international level research deliberations on news media representation of violence against women are limited to the national language Hindi and English dailies. Studies on regional local language newspapers are limited at the regional level and are yet to reach the national or international pool of research. Thus it is vital to understand the discourse of the regional local language newspapers on violence against women. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, Tamilnadu is among the top five states in cases of crime against women. Dinathanthi is a leading newspaper with fifths position in circulation nationally, with an All India Readership (AIR) of 8,156,000 in 2014.
Constant exposure to violent scenes as forms of entertainment can normalise violence as part of e... more Constant exposure to violent scenes as forms of entertainment can normalise violence as part of everyday lives. Onscreen violence dehumanises women and this can change the way women in our families and around us are viewed. All women have the right to be respected as human beings. Narratives which reflect the real life contributions and struggles of women without exaggerations are the need of the hour, say B. Radha and P. Govindaraju
News media shapes our opinions and beliefs on issues of social importance. Especially, when it co... more News media shapes our opinions and beliefs on issues of social importance. Especially, when it comes to issues relating to violence against women there are several studies on the discourse of the news media. Yet very few studies have opted to see the reception of such news reports by its readers. Studies have observed journalistic frames that has been continuously criticised for its lack of gender sensitiveness and overwhelming sensationalism in reporting cases of violence against women especially sexual violence. This paper tries to explore the reception of news on issues relating to violence against women and if framing of such news has any influence on the news reception.
A review on the Tamil language film Aramm – from a feminist perspective