The caste system, which prescribed punishments for Dalits, is slowly eroding, but the atrocities against Dalits continue on a scale that makes Dalit travails seem extreme. Previous scholars have argued such oppression because of the lack of proper representation of Dalit atrocities in the mainstream media and space for Dalits to voice their concerns. In a networked society, Dalits are creating identities on online spaces. This chapter, hence, discusses Dalit empowerment from the lens of media literacy through a case study approach. Three case studies have been analysed and conceptualised along the lines of media literacy and networked society. Overall, this study reflects that media literacy assists streamlined development of the culture and ideologies with media, creative and communicative abilities, and critical thinking. Considering the absence of regulations or policies to ‘media educate' the school students, especially the minorities, this research creates an awareness and helps in policy establishment aimed towards implementing media literacy education curricula.
Culture is a dynamic entity learned through several social institutions. While books, a social institution, used to serve as the major space which educated citizens about culture, in a digital media age, media is considered a social institution that plays a strong role in reinforcing the beliefs, values, and norms that influence cultural beliefs. Of the various forms of media, movies on streaming services and their characteristics of creating a more lively and global impact took over the educational aspect of books. In spite of the growing relevance of media to cultural studies, there has been an ongoing debate on how media represents the cultures and the history of a community. Hence, this study investigates the media depiction of Aboriginals in three award-winning Australian Aboriginal movies released in the 21st century on the most popular streaming service in Australia- Netflix. Agenda setting theory has been combined with theoretical understandings of culture to understand the correlation between media, culture, and education.
Media as a site of reproduction of existing social relations and inequality is a significant area of research. This article explores how mainstream print media contributes to an area of entrenched inequality in India: caste-based inequalities and dominant-subordinate power relations. It explicitly examines how Dalit communities, who for centuries were forced to abide by casteist notions of hierarchy, are framed by Indian news media. A comparative approach using content and framing analysis have been undertaken to analyse the news media reports on Dalit discrimination published in the leading English (Times of India) and Hindi newspaper (Amar Ujala) from 2011 to 2014. Conceptualising the data along the lines of framing theory in a transitioning society, this study explores a new-casteist approach to reporting Dalits. The news media reports the Dalit grievances but ignores the complexities of ethnocultural minorities in a transitioning democratic society and involves Dalit passive-fixation and/or demonisation.
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