India makes its imprint, Communication Research gains ground
S. Ganesh INN/Chennai
Those who have established name for teaching have found new colleagues and are finding competition for themselves. Truly, Indian communication research is changing and this calls for trained professionals in it. This has also led to increase in teaching of communication, according to Rogers and Singal.
There is a raise in the number of Indian magazines that are actively deal with the field of research, along with American and western magazines. Earlier, large share of the pie comprised magazines of the western world.
Mass communicator, a magazine published by Delhi based
JIMS is a fine example in this regard. Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) publishes, Communicator, a magazine dedicated to communication research and Bhopal Journalism University Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism publishes Media Mimansa. They are all ideal examples too.
Many dailies and weeklies occasionally bring out supplements on media and media related articles and these help general and communication reader also. Good communication research is carried out in national institutes like IIM and IIT to some extent.
Communication research in India follows western traditions and it came from those people who had gone to USA for higher studies and returned to this country and took up research work.
They were qualified in western empirical traditions and follow western methodologies generally. Prominent researchers of yesteryears were located in universities in southern part of India in Kerala, Bangalore and at Indian Institute of Mass Communication among others and had written articles and books as well as research papers on media related topics and on communication research.
It is estimated that atleast 200 people from India would have gone to USA for higher studies in communication in about 3000 universities existing there and many would have returned securing masters and doctoral degrees in communication since 1960.
Educational institutions at Texas, Florida, Southern California, Columbia, Cornell are among those where Indian students might have gone and secured degrees in communication. Notable names are Bashiruddin, Eapen, Vilanilam, Eswara among others who had a degree from the US and have been involved in teaching and researching communication.
Quantitative methodologies are important and these are given importance in western empirical tradition and same should happen in India too. Most of American communication research is quantitative and it is the most important way of doing researches.
Most of the mass communication researches are social science researches and deal with communication, sociology, anthropology and other disciplines effectively. Many researches focus on social science research questions and try to answer these effectively. Many studies have been borrowed from social science and are used in communication research and mass communication research effectively.