The Hoot Reader ─ Media Practice in Twenty-First Century India

The notion of media power has gained widespread attention in India over the past decade, and has led to inevitable scrutiny of those who wield it. THE HOOT (thehoot.org) was incepted in early 2001 in an attempt to revive a concern for media ethics, restore focus on development in the subcontinent, and preserve the freedom of the press. In the last decade, this Web portal created space for debates, self-reflection, and analysis which was largely absent in mainstream media. In reporting how the media covers India, it underlined the complexity and promise of Indian developmental and political experiences.

THE HOOT Reader is an endeavour to create a permanent archive of the best journalistic and analytical pieces from THE HOOT website over the past decade. It records a wide range of issues in media practice; macro- and micro-analyses spanning all media forms and drawing on the entire South Asian region. Critiques on media ethics, reporting of caste, communalism, conflict, gender, legal reporting, new media, the media business, and more are contained in this volume. It also dwells on lesser known but equally crucial aspects of media such as community radio thereby foregrounding a media landscape that is complex and variegated. This collection is unique in that it presents a trajectory of political, economic, social, and cultural developments of the past decade through the prism of media reportage and analysis.

Sevanti Ninan is Founder-Editor, THE HOOT.

Subarno Chattarji is Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi.