Media, Mediation and the Vernacular Public Arena in India

Abstract

This article analyses the rise of the vernacular public arena in India and the ways in which various media have contributed to the mediation of the multiplicity of the vernacular and the universality of the public. With increasing access by different social groups to various media, space opens up for the participation of the wider public in the activities of the mediated public arena. The participation of a multitude of publics in market-driven media networks has led to a change in the nature and function of the media, which not only have ensure that they survive in a capitalist marketplace, but need to cater to a requirement to serve wider audiences. There is thus a simultaneous presence in the public arena of viewpoints and interests of the urban middle classes, along with the poor and the marginalised. This hybrid character of the public arena is often overlooked in the discussion on democratic transformation in India. The vernacular public arena is thus the expanding space of socio-political negotiation, interaction and contestation, in which a diversity of voices get mediated and remediated to reassemble and redefine the publics. The mediation has led to the subjectification of the diversity of people, but is far from consensual politics, as it often involves severe debate, criticism, oppression and resistance. This article focuses particularly on the role of the media in the rise of the vernacular public arena, and how it has helped to connect diverse social groups in a network of dialogues and negotiations, which has contributed to the democratisation of the public arena.

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