Media experiences in community-driven rural areas: exploring children’s media cultures in rural Gujarat, India
Kiran Vinod Bhatia, Manisha Pathak‐Shelat · Journal of Children and Media · 2019
In this paper, we examine how social structures of gender, caste, and religion, within which children in India operate, inform their engagements with media technologies/narratives. We demonstrate our approach using the case of three villages in the Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, India. We examine children’s media cultures using ethnographic methods which occasion long-term immersion and paying attention to children’s narratives. We also argue that children experience and enact their agency while engaging with media from within the limitations or norms imposed by the social structures. This is evident in the simple negotiation strategies they have developed to challenge social structures and norms prevalent in their societies. Based on empirical evidence we conclude that the children’s exposure to and consumption of media narratives under adult management allow the families and communities to reinforce the dominant rationality of patriarchy, caste hierarchy, and religious prejudice.