Studies in Media

For people in their 50's like me, the evolution of digital technology has been surprising, overwhelming, disrupting and overwhelming. I had not even seen a television set till I entered senior college, had seen the computer only in SciFi and James Bond movies let alone touch it. I never thought I would ever make a film, simply because my family did not have deep pockets. For us, even owning a telephone was a luxury, and no thought of a mobile phone ever crossed our minds. I remember the time when I was first introduced to a computer in 1989; I was almost afraid to touch it. I remember how gingerly I used the mouse. I bought my first computer in 1992, which was a 386, with a 120 MB hard drive and a 4 MB RAM! And when there came along a 1.2 GB hard drive, we thought it could not get better than this. For the last about 100,000 years, we, the Homo sapiens have evolved with nature. We have got used to the sun, the moon, the weather, and the sunrise and sunset diurnal cycle. We fee...

How does the mind receive and analyse information from a visual? It is a complex process involving the left and right hemispheres of the brain, together synchronising the logical and emotional intelligence, at the same time, involving learning through genetic evolution, and adding to it experiential learning. I came across a Facebook update which described how some primary school textbooks, the meaning of beautiful and ugly were represented. Check the picture.... (Source: Unknown) How many readers agree to this? No, don't give me an intelligent, sociologically relevant, politically correct answer. Truth is, we have all learnt the meaning of beautiful and ugly from this, or some other picture, or have been pointed out a beautiful woman and an ugly one during our childhood and in our college days. In the early stages of childhood, from birth to 3 years, the human brain is extremely vulnerable to external influences. A violent childhood, a traumatic experience, or visuals suc...

Very briefly, the CNN Effect emphasizes on the effect of media on government policy decisions. There have been instances where wide coverage given by the media has partially had an effect on policy. However, the CNN Effect concept has generated a lot of debates and controversies. However, it needs to be seen how effective are the new media - blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. in having an impact on government policy. The Clinton - Lewinsky story was first broken in a blog and picked up by the media. However, the scaandal, if one may call it had little impact on Clinton's career. Back home, Shashi Tharoor's tweets led to his downfall, at least for the time being. The 'Pink Chaddi Campaign' was an equally sensationalist and radical campaign against a sensationalist and radical Muthalik. But what about real issues? What kind of issues are discussed on these new media and how many read them? Recently I got a lot of requests asking me to join the 'Save the Tiger' campa...