 Dr. Juri Hazarika, Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at Krishnakantohandikoi State Open University. In this video, we are going to discuss the unit number 11 of the paper Introduction to Mass Communication. This paper is of BA First Semester in Mass Communication. So the name of this unit is Communication Media in the Indian context. Today we are going to discuss the different media of communication in the context of this country India. So we know that India has a very rich legacy of different modes of communication be it the oral form of communication or other traditional folk media forms. So many messages in the early days many messages were disseminated orally through the word of mouth. So these were the messages were disseminated in the form of different folk tales, folk stories, epic stories, mythological stories, hymns, etc. The different travelers and monks who travel around the country they carried with them these kind of stories and messages and they used to tell the people and in that way the oral form of communication flourished and it moved from one place to another. So this is how the oral form of communication became very rich in this country. Okay, so here the communication is disseminated in this way and it leads the way to enrich the culture and bring about certain societal changes in the in its course. So when we talk about oral communication we are referring to the communication which is done with the help of spoken words. The words of the mouth. So we know that speech is one of the important vehicles of human communication. Speech is very important for human beings to interact with each other along with other different forms of communication but speech is considered to be one of the important ones. So in the early days when most of the population was illiterate what happened then the oral communication it proved to be a very good means to propagate the ideas and messages from one person to another. So we can also talk about the religious preachers, the people who preached about religion, who talked about religion and philosophical ideas and messages. What these people did in the earlier days they traveled around visiting different centres of pilgrimages and during their visits they used to learn about the religious matters, different epics and scriptures and when they get this kind of knowledge they used to carry this knowledge with them and moves to different places, disseminating and sharing all the information and knowledge that they have gathered during their travels. And these religious preachers are also specially known as Parivrajakas or wandering monks. So they were considered to be important persons to carry around messages, to disseminate messages during the earlier period in India. And here we can also mention the name of Vardamana Mahavira who was the propagator of the Jainism and Gautam Buddha and they were considered as the advocates of oral tradition of religious and philosophical communication in India. As we all know how these two great philosophers, how they disseminated and shared the knowledge that they gained over the years with the common people through their oral words or spoken words. Now let's move on to a comparatively modern age. Then we can talk about Mahatma Gandhi. He is one of the most powerful orators of India. His speeches, they had a lot of strength and a lot of power in bringing about change. His words, his speeches, they brought the entire, we can say that these his words brought the entire nation together in the time of crisis and the people gathered together against the British government through his speeches and his writings also carried a lot of importance but his speeches are to be given more importance. They brought about changes, they united the people and took the country towards independence. So another form of communication used by Gandhi are the prayer meetings. He organized various prayer meetings which included silent prayers, singing and chanting and you know of the people who attended the all these kind of you know meetings organized by Gandhi, they united together and in those meetings Gandhi used to you know talk about different relevant issues of that time and in that way through these prayer meetings Gandhi succeeded in passing on his messages, passing on the ideas, his opinions that he gathered that he had and these were you know taken to the people and this is how he influenced a large section of the country at the time and when we talk about the present times interpersonal communication is considered to be very favorable especially in the world of business. So far we have understood what interpersonal communication is. It is a communication that takes place between two person or a few more. The commonly used forms of oral communication in an organization may include the staff meetings that take place which happens mostly between 8 to 10 people then personal discussions that happen in an official setup, the presentations, the informal conversations all these comes under you know interpersonal communication it is and it is one of the important oral communication in the especially in the business world and in any other business setups. Now let's talk in brief about the traditional forms of communication of our country. It mostly refers to the when we say traditional media it we are mostly talking about the performing arts which are also the cultural symbols of a particular community or of the people of the land okay. These these traditional forms of media are the symbol or characteristic it it reflects the identity of the community. So here we can cite some example of traditional folk media that are folk songs, folk dance forms, dramatic performances. If we talk about dramatic performances we can mention about Bhavna of Assam. It is a form of dramatic performance of mythological stories and stories from different epics through song and dance. Traditional folk media is not confined to just song and dance we must know that. Traditional folk media also include oral literature or verbal art in the form of storytelling narratives okay. They also include art and craft the things that people do with their hands they create different kind of arts and crafts and here we can talk about the making of different masks which is called Mukha in Assamese. It is a very rich tradition very rich craft of this particular land. Then traditional media forms originated as people needed some media they needed some platform to express themselves okay and in that way traditional media developed. So these forms are that's why very close to the heart of the people and these form of media they gradually change with the time okay. For example the inclusion of latest incidents in some folk songs. So here we can mention about the Bihu songs of Assam. These Bihu songs they as they gradually as the time gradually changes these Bihu songs they include the recent happenings that are going around in the world and in that way these Bihu songs act as you know mode of communication to take these important messages to the people through the songs. In the year 1972 the International Planned Parenthood Federation and UNESCO they organized a series of meetings on the integrated use of folk media and mass media in family planning and communication programs. So from here we can talk about the use of traditional media forms for different purposes especially for the purpose of development activities. Let's move ahead with this particular issue the traditional forms of street play which is commonly called as Lugad Natak. They gained popularity during especially during the Kargil conflict as what happened during this that period when Kargil conflict was going on these plays these Lugad Nataks they took various incidents and issues and the stories of sacrifices which in which was involved in the conflict and plays were made on these themes and plays were performed around the streets of various states like Orish Shama, Pradesh etc and people were informed about the issues involved with the war and people people were made aware in that way by these street plays. So this is how we know that traditional forms of media bring societal change bring awareness inform people okay in that way they perform various roles in the society. So broadly traditional forms of communication in India can be divided into folk theater folk songs narrative forms religious discourses and puppet shows. So puppetry is a very common form of communication in India most of us we know about puppetry and I think most of you have also witnessed some of the puppet shows that it is very interesting to know that this is a very ancient form of communication puppet shows are performed mostly in the village gatherings where people gather like village malas village fairs and puppet shows are also performed in the schools school playgrounds too you know their main objective here is to bring about to carry the various messages and to disseminate those messages among the village folk or among the school children and since puppet shows are very interesting and entertaining the dissemination of messages becomes very easy and this these kind of shows and this kind of traditional folk media forms are very much close to the heart of the people and they and when messages are given through these media forms it becomes easier for the people to absorb those messages and in that way the dissemination of the message becomes very successful when we are talking about puppetry there are different types of puppetry in India such as string puppets rod puppets gloves shadow puppets and others okay string puppets I think it is the most common one strings are attached to where dolls and the person the puppeteer he controls the puppets with the help of those strings in the rod puppet a rod is attached to the puppets and in that way they are handled in the context of glove puppets the puppets are made in the form of gloves and the puppeteer wears the glove and does his performance and in the case of shadow puppets the performance is done with the help of shadows the shadows that fall with the use of here the use of light and shadow is can be seen now let's move on and let's talk about some of the instances of the use of traditional media for the development of rural areas as we talk about the use of traditional folk forms for the development of the society in the development communication so the Indian government it took various steps in the recent years to use traditional folk media for development communication in 1954 the Indian government established the songs and drama division under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and their main objective was to utilize all these forms of traditional folk media for development communication purposes so here mention can be made of one Ravi Verma who is a very well-known theater personality he had been dealing with various social issues such as alcoholism pollution class and caste inequalities so on and so forth and he and his group they come up with various performances about the social issues and they try to create awareness in the society through the tradition use of traditional folk media forms especially through the use of street theater so one of the very noteworthy street play done by his group is Hame Jawaab Chahiye which was performed in 1985 and it was made on the issue of Bhopal guest tragedy here they tried to address this this particular issue and how it hampered the society and though it has been a long time since the tragedy happened how it is still affecting the people and especially children of that area so this is how in traditional folk media can bring about awareness in the society again there are another instances like the use of folk songs which played very important role in the movements called Chico and Apico movements here what happened the folk performers the folk singers they composed many folk songs on these issue they they designed their lyrics on these particular issues and these songs became very popular in the with time and they were carried around various areas and the messages of Chico movement and Apico movement these messages were disseminated to various other corners of the country again other environmentalists they also used folk media forms such as during the campaign of save the western cards this was a campaign which took place in 1985 so during this campaign also environmentalists what they did they used folk arts of South India to disseminate their messages now let's come to the present times and talk about the development of technology with the growth of information and communication technology the IT based media forms were bound to be developed and bound to be used because they have their own characteristics they have their own advantages over traditional folk media traditional folk media can be can disseminate messages over a limited area or a limited period so the growth of technology that one spent in technology they these refuted the idea of limited space and limited period they can the technology can carry forward the messages and disseminate messages to people all around the world at a time so these are the advantages and you know with the growth of technology the Indian media scenario also embraced the various technological innovations and moved forward with their you know integration of technology into the other media forms so we can talk about internet which emerged as the very important factor in today's media scenario if we can talk about the newspaper which most of the newspapers have gone online you know they are they can be read on the online platform there are the examples of internet radios the communication forms you know these communication forms when we talk about multimedia we are talking about multiple forms of media coming together and carrying forward messages so this is how we know that technology also brought significant change in the field of communication now at the end of the video let's talk about another communication form which is called as non-dominant communication non-dominant communication processes are those media forms which run contrary to dominant values or ideological propositions and organizational norms here we can give examples of street theater based on folk songs and puppetry to deliver different messages of social importance or feature stories written on newspaper or magazines which are written on the important issues and which can you know disseminate the strong messages to the masses and which can in the meantime become you know grab a lot of attention and even appear in the national or international media platforms here we can give the examples of the issues concerning narmada dam the various issues concerning this particular narmada dam were disseminated through first of all they were disseminated through the vernacular press at the local level when we say vernacular press we are meaning the language press the press which is not English but of the local language of that particular area like asemines bingoli oria etc so the narmada dam issues were first covered in the language press or vernacular press at the very local level and gradually the strength of the messages was so great that they gradually made their way to the national media and people got to know about the issue the stories grabbed attention from different platforms and various active groups like the feminist groups the environmentalists they saw the they came to know about the particular issue and they land voice for the issue and this is how the issue grew and its importance was realized and how it became one big movement okay so these communication forms are providing media coverage at the grassroots level and they are creating awareness among the masses at the grassroots level and that's why the understanding of this particular media forms is also very important in understanding the communication scenario of this country india okay so this much we are going to talk about in this particular video in the next video we will discuss more about other communication media topics thank you