Unbearable lightness? Maybe because of the irrelevance/incommensurability of Western theories? An enigma of Indian Media Research

Introduction

True, the unbearable lightness in communication research is a trend now across the globe. The present article intends to reflect on this situation with India as a case study. The pedagogy of media education and research in India is largely drawn from the West and as a result, it has inherited all the problems and complexities that De Fleur (1998) discussed two decades ago (also see Murthy (2011) for details of the problems of Indian media pedagogy and research). However, a latest review of literature on this issue shows that there is no consensus among the scholars in the West (Anderson and Middleton, 2014, 2015; Jensen and Neuman, 2013; Neuman and Guggenhiem, 2011; Servaes, 2015). Distinct disagreements have surfaced over last two decades as to the preferred areas of communication research as well as methods, such as quantitative vs qualitative, traditional media vs new media, etc. (Craig, 1999; De Fleur, 1998; Servaes, 2015). For instance, De Fleur (1998) argues strongly in favor of positivist, empirical and quantitative methods elevating humanities to the level of sciences (p. 92). On the other hand, Servaes (2015) argues in favor of qualitative research (p. 17). De Fleur (1998) even opined that the golden age of communication research has gone.

Clearly, all the authors have let off the global East and South from their review of communication research on this issue despite knowing that media pedagogy and research in this part also is west based. All the journals which the scholars in the West (Anderson and Middleton, 2014, 2015; Jensen and Neuman, 2013; Neuman and Guggenhiem, 2011) considered for their research to establish the lightness obtaining in the communication research are published by SAGE, Taylor and Francis, AEJMC, Oxford, Wiley Online, etc. located in the US or UK. In fact, a number of Asian as well as Asia-Pacific journals on communication and journalism, published by the very same publishers, publish a lot of ongoing research from this part of globe. Unfortunately, none of the research articles published in these journals found their way to these reviews on the above issue. This is apart from what Gunaratne (2010) pointed out as oligopoly of Western journals.

The conspicuous absence of the Indian/Asian research in the reviews of above mentioned scholars makes it incomplete for two reasons. First, it misses out an opportunity to examine cause(s) of the lightness in media research in this area of the globe, and compare it with the perceived lightness in media research in the West to determine whether both are similar or dissimilar, and second, whether the lightness in media research in India/Asia, is due to the ‘incommensurability’ propounded by Kuhn (1962/2012) or due to the West’s cultural imperialism over the East as postulated by Said (1978/1995) in Orientalism (See Gunaratne, 2011; Wang, 2014).

Indeed, the above pointed out gaps compel this article to take a different perspective of the lightness of communication research obtaining in India/Asia. Admittedly, there is a growing pattern of lightness in the current paradigm(s) of communication research. While Servaes (2015) listed six areas where communication research needs to improve and transform itself into a more interdisciplinarily integrated one involving social and cultural implications of the current evolution of media (pp. 16–17), he, together with Anderson and Middleton (2014, 2015), has also offered a set of six parameters as an agenda to help improve the current paradigms of communication research. Strangely, a couple of years ago, reviewing the paradigms of communication research in terms of the definition of ‘paradigm’ by Kuhn (1962/2012), Jensen and Neuman (2013) have also drawn a similar set of parameters suggestive of throwing open new paradigms of communication research because of the large scale foray of digital and multimedia technologies into conventional and traditional media platforms. This article, therefore, intends to first discuss how the irrelevance/incommensurability of Western media theories is a cause of lightness in media research (See Gunaratne, 2015 for mindful journalism, and Wang, 2014 for C/I model) and later show how handy is the agenda set by Servaes (2015) for the ongoing communication research from an Indian/Asian perspective.

Indian/Asian communication research: A developing alternative paradigm

Though the arguments of most of the scholars cited above rely on the interconnectedness of global media networks such as print, radio and television through cable, satellite and internet in the era of globalization, the cultural diversities driven by economic and industrial disparities between the East and the West raise several questions about the relevance of such interconnectedness and the implications of such interconnectedness to the global East, especially to a country like India. This irrelevance/incommensurability encompasses all the seven core traditions of communication research suggested by Craig (1999: 132) though space limitations restrain me to elaborate it further here. Despite, globalization, what applies to Western society and its media systems need not necessarily apply to the Indian (for that matter Asian) societal and media systems. Gunaratne’s (2015) latest call for unanimity on the term ‘globalization’ without confusing it for Westernization assumes a lot of significance here. It may be true that some Indian print and television media might be having tie ups with Western media conglomerates (see Kohli-Khandekar, 2013) and might be emulating Western media formats, but in terms of performance Indian media systems are uniquely native marked by local and regional cultural punctuations and priorities.

Though India has about 15 big media conglomerates, 900 television channels and 150 FM radio stations, the public sphere is highly contracted and immature. Most of the media are dominated by content related to film (stardom, star profiles, box-office performances, latest film audio releases, teaser, poster releases, film programs, film telecasting, film clippings, etc), celebrity, crime and cricket (Murthy, 2010). In his study of Telugu television phenomenon in the then State of Andhra Pradesh (which has 57 television channels, the highest in any federal State in India), Murthy (2010) has observed that Telugu television seemed to exhibit a unique pattern of performance, described as a ‘butterfly metamorphosis’ dictated by third world market compulsions, that cannot be interpreted by any of the existing media theories on the television content in the West (p. 170). He has arrived at this finding after testing the relevance of a host of ‘effects theories’ ranging from magic bullet theory to uses and gratification theory through different layers of social theories such as hegemony theory, critical theory, neo-liberal theory, social integrative action theory, etc. to associate the perceived phenomenon of Telugu television with one of the theories.

In fact, despite globalization and rapid expansion of technology and industry, India is still an agrarian society with 70% of the population living in villages, and the Indian media are typically urban centric (Murthy, 2015). This vast terrain of heterogeneity between audiences of different regions and their corresponding media ecology reflects a bipolar character that stands in sharp contrast with the homogeneity found in the audiences and their media ecology of the West Further, diversity in region, language, religion, caste and tradition compounded with national ethos and values makes it an all the more complicate, distinct and unique media system.

It was Rogers (1999) who first attempted to experiment with Indian media system to ascertain how his theory of innovation diffusion worked in a developing country like India. He studied innovation diffusion at two places—Kheda and Jhabua—where India’s first satellite experiment, namely SITE was conducted during 1975–1976 (see Contractor et al., 1988). Rogers also conducted an empirical study on the effects of the Education–Entertainment Program of Hum Log—a teleserial telecast for Indian audiences during 1982. These studies led Rogers (1999) to document that there is a gap in the communication research between one-to-one interpersonal communication and one-to-many mass communication describing the divide as two subdisciplines which may also be understood as two separate paradigms in the practice of research. Though several Western scholars subsequently attempted to document the Indian media phenomenon, their studies largely remained more or less historical and descriptive that did not contribute to any theorization on Indian media (Athique, 2012; Jeffrey, 2000).

Indian academia over decades routinely tended to interpret the Indian media research using Western communication theories. Most of the research produced in India relates to largely the paradigm of ‘Media Effects’ through content analysis using quantitative/qualitative methods. However, these studies have largely ignored intervening variables such as language, culture, ethos, tradition, religion, profile of the readers and audience, etc. leading to highly skewed interpretations. If these scholars read the original works of those who propounded the ‘effects theories’ and understand the circumstances (the historical and industrial limitations) under which those theories were conceptualized, they would not blindly attempt to conceive a one-to-one relationship between Indian media phenomena and the Western media theories.

Western scholarship has encountered this problem in a different way. Jensen and Neuman (2013) observed that despite the historical limitations associated with the ‘effects theories’ (of Laswell, Lazarsfeld, Hovland and Berelson) many scholars still tend to apply them to interpret the current media phenomena in the digital era, and many-to-many communication through social media (p. 231). While observing that cross-cultural research in journalism is immensely helpful in addressing compatibility between media systems of different nations, Hanitzsch (2008) wondered how do the conventional Western values of objective journalism fit with non-Western cultures (p. 94).

Unfortunately, studies that discuss the above question are rarely found in Indian communication research simply because many Indian researchers believe that they are producing research compatible with Western media research. Way back, Yadava (1998) offered possible evidence for enunciating Indianized communication theory from a review of ancient Indian texts. Though Adhikary (2009) brought out an Indian communication theory media using the principles of Naatayasastra (a treatise on Indian dance forms by Bharatmuni), such studies did not go beyond her research. Scholars like Gunaratne (2015), Wang (2014) and Dissanayake (2011) proposed alternative paradigms to the Western models of communication research. Murthy (2012) offered epistemological evidence for possible Indianized/native communication research methods proposing Indian cinema as a cultural model from a comparative study of Indian philosophical theories versus Western cultural theories. Space limitations forbid further elaboration of these models here.

While the questions raised by Servaes (2015) continue to ignite a debate for some more time to come, the parameters/agenda he has set before us are immensely helpful for Indian/Asian scholars to develop their own set of methods rather than carrying research as derivates of Western theories and reduce the lightness in media research. Such an approach will help Indian/Asian academy to move forward in cross-cultural and interdisciplinary research both within India as well as across border states.