Articles by Robin Jeffrey

India today is in the midst of a "media revolution". The formative phase of the digital revolution is a great time to be a journalist. It is a moment when there is the opportunity to build a "bully pulpit" - a new and effective platform. Whether India's digital revolution produces a "golden age of journalism" is something that the young journalists of today will play a large part in determining.

According to government statistics the circulation of Urdu dailies shows a phenomenal increase in the last two decades, higher than the total rise for Indian dailies in all languages. Is the rising circulation trend reported genuine? Is the Urdu reading public in India being renewed?

INDIAN LANGUAGES NEWSPAPERS: 9 Oriya: 'Identifying... with Newspapers' Robin Jeffrey The growth of Oriya newspapers after the late 1980s has been spectacular Does the willingness to pay for local information in the form of newspapers indicate the growth of a 'genuine public sphere' of which more and more Oriya-speakers see themselves as part? [Spreading across India after the end of the 'emergency' in 1977, technological change in the form of the personal computer and offset press revolutionised the newspaper industry. The circulation of daily newspapers in all languages trebled between 1976 and 1992 -from 9.3 million to 28.1 million and the dailies-per-thousand people ratio doubled -from 15 daily newspapers per 1,000 people to 32 per l,000. Regular reading of something called "news" both indicates and causes change. Expansion of competing newspapers clearly signals the vitality and growth of capitalism: newspapers have owners and owners must have advertisers. The changes of the past 20 years are obvious yet largely unstudied. The essays in this series on the press in the major Indian languages are part of a larger project to map, analyse and try to understand the transformation of the Indian language newspaper industry.] WE learn a lot from what once was the least developed newspaper industry in a major Indian language. Oriya did not get hot-metal typecasting (from the Linotype company) until the mid-1970s, 40 years after it had been introduced for Bengali and by which time the technology was obsolete.' The Oriya press, the Press and Advertisers' Year Book told readers in 1965, was "inhibited by illiteracy, lack of proper communications and industrial backwardness".2 Circulation of Oriya dailies in 1961 was 60,000, the lowest of 12 major languages, trailing Punjabi/Gurmukhi by 9,000.3 With a population of more than 17 million, the ratio of three dailies per 1,000 people was the lowest in India for a major language.

Mumbai and Pune represent two facets of Marathi journalism, Pune's Sakal, in spite of its recent shift towards new marketing and management strategies, still remains imbued with idealism of the nationalist period and its emphasis on wide-ranging local-level reporting. On the other hand, in Mumbai's highly segmented market, smaller newspapers claim popularity due to their unpredictable mix of business sense, technical mastery and cultural intimacy. [Spreading across India after the end of the 'emergency' in 1977, technological change in the form of the personal computer and offset press revolutionised the newspaper industry. The circulation of daily newspapers in all languages trebled between 1976 and 1992 from 93 million to 28.1 million and the dailies-per-thousand people ratio doubted from 15 daily newspapers per 1,000 people to 32 per 1,000. Regular reading of something called "news" both indicates and causes change. Expansion of competing newspapers clearly signals the vitality and growth of capitalism: newspapers have owners and owners must have advertisers. The changes of the past 20 years are obvious yet largely unstudied. The essays in this series on the press in the major Indian languages are part of a larger project to map, analyse and try to understand the transformation of the Indian- language newspaper industry.] TO understand the Marathi press, one needs to appreciate two cities Mumbai (Bombay) and Pune (Poona). Mumbai is the Manhattan of India a buzzing, multi-lingual magnet on an island. As well as the industrial and commercial focus of India, it is the base for the advertising industry and for India's two biggest newspaper chains. The Times of India and the The Indian Express. Pune, on the other hand, is Maharashtra's Boston(indeed, both have brahmins) where history, culture and more cultivated ways of life are supposed to prevail.

Tamil: 'Dominated by Cinema and Politics' THE newspaper industry in Tamil poses tantalising questions about the relationship between print, literacy, politics and a region's 'culture'. Tamil literacy rates have been well above all-India averages. Until the 1970s, Tamil daily newspapers had a higher dailies- per-thousand-people ratio than those of most other languages. Most Tamil newspapers were and continue to be remarkably sensational, similar in appearance to the big Gujarati dailies. Perhaps most striking of all, magazines in Tamil have had remarkably high circulations. Tamil readers prefer magazines or the raciest dailies; the sobriety of the Malayalis in neighbouring Kerala, or even the disciplined professionalism of Telugu dailies, seems surprisingly absent.