8 13 yrs

Indian Media of 21st century consist different types of mass communications: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet based Web sites/portals, Mobile apps, etc. India’s media was active and popular since the late 18th century with print started in 1780, radio broadcasting initiated in 1927, and the screening of Auguste and Louis Lumière moving pictures in Bombay initiated during the July of 1895. It is among the oldest and largest media of the world. Indus Media has been free and independent throughout most of its history, even before establishment of a large empire by Ashoka the so great on foundations of chanakya politics, righteousness, openness, morality and spirituality.

In roots of open-media, vedas and upanishads should be a testimony to simplistic and transparent lifestyles its ancestors practiced and preached in the sub-continent and globally. In the new entertainment world, managed capitalistic paid media with primary focus on TRP-ROI based corporate profits, social and human exploitation are biggest threats to nations, industries, workers, democracies, civil societies and all living spices at large.

Last Update: March 2022

Despite 24/7 surveillance of commoners and snooping of the royals to save crooks of 21st century, the period of emergency (1975–1977) was the only brief period when India’s media was reported to have faced with potential government retribution, officially. Though this modern and digital media independence is for whom, by whom and of whom will remain a big constant question thanks to proliferation promoted by cronies, unless all revolting voices are mass-terminated somehow via some glorified uncle’s #LittleBoy II or #TinyVirus, one fine day!

This full-continent (why sub-?) consumed 99 million newspaper copies as of 2007 – making it the second largest market in the world for newspapers. In 2014, Indian TV industry derived the major share of its profits from advertising segment and rest from subscription. By 2009, the Indian continent had a total of 81,000,000 Internet users – comprising 7% of the continent’s population, and 7,570,000 people in India also had access to broadband Internet as of 2010 – making it the 11th largest country in the world in terms of broadband Internet users. As of 2009, India is among the 4th largest television broadcast stations in the world with nearly 1,400 stations. Snapshot of evolution of media in India is as below:

Mass media in India – Bengal: The Bengal Gazette was started by James Augustus Hicky in 1780. The Gazette, a two-sheet newspaper, specialised in writing on the private lives of the Sahibs of the Company. He dared even to mount scurrilous attacks on the Governor-General, Warren Hastings’, wife, which soon landed “the late printer to the Honourable Company” in trouble.

Hicky was sentenced to a 4 months jail term and Rs.500 fine, which did not deter him. After a bitter attack on the Governor-General and the Chief Justice, Hicky was sentenced to one year in prison and fined Rs.5,000, which finally drove him to penury. These were the first tentative steps of journalism in India.

Mass media in India – Calcutta: B.Messink and Peter Reed were pliant publishers of the India Gazette, unlike their infamous predecessor. The colonial establishment started the Calcutta Gazette. It was followed by another private initiative the Bengal Journal. The Oriental Magazine of Calcutta Amusement, a monthly magazine made it four weekly newspapers and one monthly magazine published from Calcutta, now Kolkata.

Mass media in India – Madras Chennai: The Madras Courier was started in 1785 in the southern stronghold of Madras, which is now called Chennai. Richard Johnson, its founder, was a government printer. Madras got its second newspaper when, in 1791, Hugh Boyd, who was the editor of the Courier quit and founded the Hurkaru. Tragically for the paper, it ceased publication when Boyd passed away within a year of its founding.

It was only in 1795 that competitors to the Courier emerged with the founding of the Madras Gazette followed by the India Herald. The latter was an “unauthorised” publication, which led to the deportation of its founder Humphreys. The Madras Courier was designated the purveyor of official information in the Presidency.

In 1878, The Hindu was founded, and played a vital role in promoting the cause of Indian independence from the colonial yoke. It’s founder, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was a lawyer, and his son, K Srinivasan assumed editorship of this pioneering newspaper during for the first half of the 20th century. Today this paper enjoys the highest circulation in South India, and is among the top five nationally.

Mass media in India – Bombay: Bombay, now Mumbai, surprisingly was a late starter – The Bombay Herald came into existence in 1789. Significantly, a year later a paper called the Courier started carrying advertisements in Gujarati.

The first media merger of sorts: The Bombay Gazette, which was started in 1791, merged with the Bombay Herald the following year. Like the Madras Courier, this new entity was recognised as the publication to carry “official notifications and advertisements”.

‘A Chronicle of Media and the State’, by Jeebesh Bagchi in the Sarai Reader 2001 is a handy timeline on the role of the state in the development of media in India for more than a century.

Bagchi divides the timeline into three ‘ages’. The Age of Formulation, which starts with the Indian Telegraph Act in 1885 and ends with the Report of the Sub-Committee on Communication, National Planning Committee in 1948.

State of Modern Mass Media: After Independence, the Indian media had evolved, realigned and reinvented itself to a large extent, and now-a-days you can see a clear division between commercial and aesthetic expressions of our Media Giants, sometimes arbitrary. Modern mass communication media is poles apart relative to any aesthetic feeling: vulgarity and arrogance nullify any hypothesis of meaning. Aesthetics is the more powerful answer to violence of modern mass communication. Today’s mass communication media seems to elude every determination, exposing its message to all possible variants, it finishes to abolish it. Goal of mass communication is always the unbiased dissipation of any content, and the world wide web is no exception, and surely is the most efficient media tool unless cronies also takes over it systematically. When we say people and groups lack integrity, we mean that they’re corrupt and deceitful, despite their glowing skin, wealth, societal appeal, oratory, cult or whatever!

Thanks to fame games, social media exploitation, FDI / TRP for investments, branding, political abuse of branded journalists, media bias towards ruling class, paid indoctrination, corporatism – the distinction between areas like movie-making, daily opera shows and popular mass media are now fully blurred. It’s also very interesting to observe how the old media are becoming more and more permeable to blogs, apps and D.I.Y. information. This phenomenon is not due to a fascination in more democratic information sources. On the contrary – the pressure is rising due to the growth of the eyes’ (cameras and new digital devices) that are watching the same events that mainstream media are reporting to us: the possibility of being uncovered are too many and broadcast journalists are forced to tell the truth (or at least a plausible version of it).

As a consequence, independent blogs (without covert support of paid media or political gangs of any color) have become the major source of news and information about many global affairs. We also have to consider that bloggers & digital writers are often the only real journalists, as they (at their own risk) provide independent news in countries where the mainstream media is censored, hyped, disgusted, biased or under control.

References & Sources: Various online / offline publications, comments and articles.

8 thoughts on “History of Mass Media in India

  1. A special leaked report on Gujju Mafia Gangs vs Left Media.

    More concerning is the Indian authorities wanting to curtail social media – read some recent comments from even office bearing ministers. Divide and rule, pitch organized media vs unorganized social media, bhakts vs humanity. Hope they understand that despite shortcomings and in a global culture it is not wise to filter content from either media. Many democracies, including India & US, are yet to understand the importance of unbiased, neutral media to sustain a functional democracy, stop mutation of human values and empathetic cultures. More coming soon.

  2. Ethics in Mainstream Media and Digital Journalism – a myth or reality!

    Ideas like Wikileaks, Panama Papers, Snowden, Chelsha and Many Other Unknowns exposing public office crooks can be a close reality of ethical journalism – as they are adapting to take advantage of new circumstances and possibilities. Internet has become what journalism used to be full of choices full of news and your choice to choose who is ethical. Platforms like WisePoint.org are entirely non-profit without even ads, reason why profiteering bhakts hate such unfit foolish ideas. Read more

  3. “You can evaluate a government only when the media is independent and free during its time”. Adds “Not all battles are fought for victory. Some are fought simply to tell the world that someone was there on the battle field”. See how pathetic the downfall of our collective value systems which need such red doses of reminders for just practicing such basic human principles on regular basis! Past experiences and history is full of factual testimonies.. for a recent one read few about German resistance to Nazism.

  4. Desi media bhakts are only preaching for profitable fame, and brewing religion + politics + digital ROI + privacy trade cocktails. Rarely these famous TRP celebrities (no more journalists are made here) dare follow Bhagavad Gita’s central theme called “निष्काम कर्म” souped in artificial attachments for self-benefit. Its better to focus on nature, people and peace. No one can be 100% right about man-made selfie rules, republics and land masses. In the end, we all get back as per our accumulated karma.

  5. Publishers like Pearson should not be allowed to decide the rigidly specific conditions under which a student can learn. No book should spy on your reading habits or simply “disappear” after you have had it for too long. In the digital age, it is unacceptable for a publisher to impose the same principles of scarcity that would apply to a physical product to a digital file. It’s our aim to let the world know that we support the rights of readers.

  6. Activists all over the world come together on the International Day Against DRM to resist Digital Restrictions Management’s massive and aggressive encroachment on our real digital rights. For this year’s IDAD on October 12th, we are focusing in particular on the increasing and disturbing amount of DRM present in ebooks and other online educational materials. Having so thoroughly invaded our leisure time, the digital infection known as DRM should not be allowed to spread into the classroom.

  7. No Press Freedom Day for a vocal non-English farm worker in DRC exposing GM food profiteers while popular digital media (alias mafia) are busy wiki cleansing of best sources, realigning online capitalists, full bias towards ruling cronies / brands.. We’re light years away from today’s so-called mainstream media obsessed with privacy theft, rumor, indoctrination, hype, bias / ephemera. The fake media & its proxies tag and troll truth-reporting and transparent channels with trendy things.

    An honest voice is louder than a mob’s… though painful for corporate overlords and big daddies.

  8. Stay tuned for “Future of Mass Media in India & Citizen Journalism”.

    There is nothing wrong with making a profit so making money and being ethical are not always in conflict. One can be ethical and profitable at the same time. Clearly you can sometimes make more money by being unethical (as long as you don’t get caught) but that is no more or less true of journalism than any other field.

    Big Data Journalist: People consumed trillions of AI social media junk items and main-stream bites as on 2021 – making their lifestyle more mental, insecure, bloat and vulnerable to digital imperialists. Beacon for evolution of real liberty are now safely pushed to gen-next.. the deep state beneficiaries can SWOT this as development! More coming soon.

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