Citation

Ohm B. Media Cult. Soc. 2021; 43(4): 750-763.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0163443721994531

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between media and communication as increasingly conflictive under conditions of de-democratization in India, this essay proposes a focus on violence-induced conditionalities of political communication among the affected. I introduce the term 'media/violence' as I look at two spaces in North Indian cities that have been turned into 'Muslim ghettos' over the past two decades: Jamia Nagar in New Delhi and Juhapura in Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Based on intermittent fieldwork between 2015 and 2020 (partly online), I argue that differences both in the quality of the violence as well as in the interaction between mediated and physical violence executed on the two spaces conditioned long-term options of collective communication (and their absence). The analysis helps us understand how massive political and legal protests could eventually erupt in Jamia Nagar (Shaheen Bagh) in late 2019, while the very reason for protest appears to have eluded residents of Juhapura.

Language: en

Keywords

anti-CAA protests; communicative damage; Gujarat pogrom 2002; Hindutva; Indian television; media modernity; media violence; Muslim ghetto