Course offered in 2007-2008
Course Sessions
Module I: Introduction – Media and associated concepts
2 sessions
Instructor – Zainab Bawa
Key concepts and questions for the sessions:
• What is media? – media as transmission and media as site of production
• Different registers of media
• What lies between media and regulations? – media and mediation
• Concepts of authorship and reception of media
• Thinking through the concepts of text and textuality
• Thinking through the concept of speech acts
• Question of site – what does site for production of media mean? Is the site physical or ephemeral?
Readings for the Module:
1) Noam Chomsky – excerpts to be suggested
2) D. H. Lawrence - Lady Chatterley’s Lover
3) A newspaper report (to be suggested) on a recent film ban
Module II: Why regulate the media?
3 sessions
Instructor – Zainab Bawa
Screening of the film ‘Elephant’ (2003) by Gus Van Sant
Key concepts and questions for the sessions:
• Regulation and Censorship as control of behaviour, especially sexual and moral behaviour
• Colonial history of regulation in India
• Why does the state control media?
• Concepts of Content and Form of media
• Forms of censorship – religious, social, moral, etc.
• Globalization, liberalization and regulation of media
• Between 1993 and 1997 – introduction of cable television and a period of several cases of censorship
• What is being initiated through censorship?
Readings for the module
1) Edward Said – excerpts from culture and imperialism
2)
Module III: Objects of Regulation - Pornography
2 sessions
Instructor – Nishant Shah, Ph.D. Student, Center for the Study of Culture and Society
Key concepts and questions for the sessions:
• What makes an object ‘pronographic’?
• Registers of pornography
• Aesthetics of pornography
• Sites of pornography in the city – the cyber café, prostitution, etc.
• Introducing the site of the city where pornography is regulated
• The triangle – city, regulation and pornography
Readings for the module: To be recommended
Module IV: City and Media
2 sessions
Instructor – Zainab Bawa
Key concepts and questions for the sessions:
• Drawing the connection between city and media
• The notions of Fantasy and Real – drawing the connection between city and media
• City as a site where media is controlled and contained
• City as produced in the media – concept of ‘the city in crisis’
• Affect and the City
• The age of the Malls and multiplexes in the City – what happens to media and regulations?
• Flash mobs
Readings for the Module: To be recommended
Module V: Crisis in Media – the cable TV networks and piracy
2 Sessions
Instructor – Zainab Bawa
Key concepts and questions for the sessions:
• Why regulate cable television? – watching the interplay between city, economy and local politics through Cable wars fought in Mumbai
• Laws governing cable television – role of government in regulation
• The triad – city, government and regulation
• What is copyright?
• Context of Copyright – United States and the rest of the world
• What is piracy?
• Is copying good or bad?
• The City and Copyright – regulating street economies and hawkers selling pirated materials
Activity: What is the one location in the city that come to your mind when I say media? Can you create an advertisement/short film/a write-up for Lonely Planet on any one location in the city which comes to your mind when I say media? How would you introduce that location to the rest of the class?
Readings for the module: To be recommended
Module VI: The City in Crisis – Mumbai train blasts and the ban on blogspot
1 Session
Instructor – Zainab Bawa
Key concepts and questions for the session:
• What is Crisis?
• Crisis and Regulation
• Introducing blog as media
• Context of blogspot ban
• Government and regulation – concept of legitimacy of government
Readings for the module: To be recommended
Module VII: Bangalore – the making of the IT City
1 session
Instructor: Nishant Shah
Readings for the module: To be recommended
Film screening: Good Copy Bad Copy - consolidating the learning from modules V, VI and VII
Module VIII: New digital technologies
1 session
Instructor: Namita Malhotra, media practitioner and lawyer at the Alternate Law Forum (ALF)
Key Concepts and questions for the session:
• What is digital technology?
• Digital technology as media form
• Digital technology – copy, cut, paste, edit – introducing the idea of creative commons
• Screening: ‘Kaun mile kisko’ created by Namita Malhotra
• Technologies for new digital technology – how these are produced and circulated in the city
• Technology, media and regulation – introducing the relationship
Readings for the session: To be recommended
• What is media?
• What is/are regulations?
The readings for this module will be on the historical context of regulation in India, regulations instituted by the British and the regulation era in the 1990's in the context of globalization.
Edward Said - excerpt from "Culture and Imperialism"
Link found here
Shohini Ghosh - "TV Censorship in India" Link found here
Court Judgement on "Choli ke peeche song" Link found here
• Objects of regulation
The readings for this module will be on the historical context of regulation in India, regulations instituted by the British and the regulation era in the 1990's in the context of globalization.
Edward Said - excerpt from "Culture and Imperialism"
Link found here
Shohini Ghosh - "TV Censorship in India" Link found here
Court Judgement on "Choli ke peeche song" Link found here
• The City as a Site for Media Regulations
In modules two and three, we visited the concept of site and understanding how sites are created. Censorship is enacted on a site. In this module, we will look at how the city becomes a site for media regulations.
Compulsory Readings
1. Jai Sen: The Unintended City Link
2. Deborah Stevenson: Introduction
This excerpt from Deborah Stevenson's book on the city as a spectacle allows us to rethink the notion of the city as a composite entity. Jai Sen's article helps us to understand how different groups within the city create cities despite processes of planning, Deborah Stevenson's excerpt pushes us to view the city in all its symbolism - the World Trade Center Towers symbolic of not just capitalism, but everything that New York stands for and the interconnectedness of this symbolism between global cities.
Recommended Reading:
1. Ashis Nandy: Indian Popular Cinema as a Slum's Eye View of Politics
In continuing with readings on the city, this article by Ashis Nandy provides an insight into how the poor view the cinema and their aspirations in the city.
2. Deborah Stevenson: The City as Spectacle
• Cable Television and Piracy
In continuing with our discussion on how the city becomes a site for media regulations, in this module we will look at how cable television networks battles and piracy conflicts are fought between the state, the markets, the producers and distributors.
1) Documentation of World Information City by Shaina Anand
This article first appeared in “In the Shade of the Commons: Towards a Culture of Open Networks (ISBN-90-806-4523-0) and is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Netherlands License.
2) Veena Naregal: " Cable Communications in Mumbai "
This article gives us a comprehensive account of the conflicts in cable television industry and the stakes involved in this conflict for the government, the MSOs and the small time cable Link found here
• Internet Censorship and Cyberterrorism
Deborah Stevenson - Imagining the City: Movies, Maps and Cyberspace Link found here
Ban on Blogspot Link found here
Internet Censorship Link found here
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