UNIT IV

Media and community

Community media are any form of media that function in service of or by a community. A
community in this sense can refer to a geographical area, a cultural identity or another concept
linking people together. Community media represent a separate entity and are fundamentally
different from private and public media. This term can also be used to describe the grassroots
movement of people to create their own local media initiatives.
Definition
Community media are generally defined as a distinct sector of the media for their independence,
base in civil society and provision of a social service as opposed to seeking profits. They serve as a
third sector of the media apart from private and public media and are important in giving
communities a platform to express their concerns for local issues, engage in democratic debate and
deliver a reliable access to information. However, there is no consensus on a definition as each
region displays unique forms of community media.
Modes of community media
Community media can take all the forms of other conventional media, such as print, radio,
television, Web-based and mixed media. Community radio is particularly widespread around the
world with radio stations being founded to inform their listeners on issues important to the
community.
Community radio
Community radio usually is a short-range, not-for-profit radio station or channel that caters for the
information needs of people living in a particular locality, in the languages and formats that are most
adapted to the local context. Community radio stations can be mobilized for campaigns, for example
by announcing campaign events, hosting talk shows with campaigners, or playing the campaign
radio jingle and songs

UNESCO
UNESCO released the Community Media Sustainability Policy Series to help community
broadcasters overcome the obstacles they face in establishing and sustaining their operations. This
series presents the following recommendations[16] put forward by stakeholders and participants at an
international seminar for Community Media Sustainability: Strengthening Policies and Funding
event held by UNESCO in 2015 to promote a healthy policy environment:
Definition of community broadcasting: community broadcasters should be defined by their
independent nature, community governance and focus on issues of local concern.
Formal recognition: community broadcasters should be considered separate from private and state
media in a country’s laws and given the same protection afforded to other media.
Licensing: a country should ensure that licensing procedures are fair and transparent, as well as less
demanding than the process for commercial media.
Spectrum: a minimum percentage of the broadcasting spectrum should be reserved for community
media use.
Provision of public funding: countries should ensure that a continued source of funding is provided
for community broadcasters to apply for to increase their sustainability.
Access to Private Funding and Support: community broadcasters should be allowed the right to
utilize private sources of funding, such as income through advertising.
Digital provisions: countries should ensure that community media can access and afford
opportunities in the digital space

Media and audience

What is an audience?
An individual or collective group of people who read or consume any media text .The audience for
any media product is the group that consumed it. Some texts will aim to encourage a wide or mass
audience and others a specific or niche group. Each person will consume the product in a different
way.
Examples: Radio listeners, Television viewers, Newspaper and magazine readers, Web traffic on
web sites. 
Audiences importance
Without audiences there would be no media.
•Media organizations produce media texts to make profit no audience = no profit.
•The mass media is becoming more competitive than ever to attract more and more audiences in
different ways and stay profitable.
Fragmented audience
• The division of audiences into smaller groups due to the variety of media outlets.
• EXAMPLE: Newspapers and magazines – you can now view the hard copy AND online version
(sometimes free).
• The aim is to hit as many people as possible/sell more copies/generate a larger audience. But
measuring that audience becomes hard! You may have some people that only look online, some that
only read the hard copy, or some that do both!
Types of Audience
• Mass audience – often termed ‘broadcast audience’. Those who consume mainstream or popular
texts such as soaps or sitcoms. Media and communication that targets a very large group of people
(women, men, children, adults etc).
Niche audience – much smaller but very influential. A niche audience is a small, select group of
people with a very unique interest.
Target audience The media industry is highly competitive and all media texts are created with a
target audience in mind. If there isn’t an audience for a media text then it won’t be successful either
in getting its message across or, if it is a commercial media text, making money for the producers.
Media producers use audience research and analysis to find out as much as possible about their
target audience and use that research to ensure their production will appeal to them.
Demographics and psychometrics Media producers define and categories their audience through
demographic profiles. A demographic audience profile defines groups based on things like age,
gender, income, education and occupation.
A Psychometric Audience Profile defines an audience by how they think and by considering their
values, attitudes and lifestyle (VALs).

A demographic audience profile can be used to define a target audience

Streaming media
Streaming media is video or audio content sent in compressed form over the Internet and played
immediately, rather than being saved to the hard drive..
With streaming media, a user does not have to wait to download a file to play it. Because the
media is sent in a continuous stream of data it can play as it arrives. Users can pause, rewind or
fast-forward, just as they could with a downloaded file, unless the content is being streamed live.
Here are some advantages of streaming media:
 Makes it possible for users to take advantage of interactive applications like video search
and personalized playlists.
 Allows content deliverers to monitor what visitors are watching and how long they are
watching it.
 Provides an efficient use of bandwidth because only the part of the file that's being
transferred is the part that’s being watched.
 Provides the content creator with more control over his intellectual property because the
video file is not stored on the viewer's computer. Once the video data is played, it is
discarded by the media player.
Media is usually streamed from prerecorded files but can also be distributed as part of a live
broadcast feed. In a live broadcast, the video signal is converted into a compressed digital signal
and transmitted from a Web server as multicast, sending a single file to multiple users at the
same time.
Streaming media is transmitted by a server application and received and displayed in real-time
by a client application called a media player. A media player can be either an integral part of a
browser, a plug-in, a separate program, or a dedicated device, such as an iPod. Frequently, video
files come with embedded players. YouTube videos, for example, run in
embedded Flash players.
YouTube, for example, can stream low, medium and high-quality videos to both mobile phone
users and broadband users. However, YouTube’s high-quality videos for phones (320 x 240
pixels) have less resolution than low-quality videos for PCs (400 x 226 pixels) because phones
have smaller screens.

Media institutions
A Media Institution is an established and regulated organisation that owns, and produces many
different media products, systems, and texts. A Media Institution is a company or organisation
that is accountable for a media text. This could be through marketing, production, distribution or
regulation. Media institutions tend to be large global corporations such as broadcasting
companies, newspaper and magazine publishers, film production companies, music and
publishing companies, and some governments.

Prasar Bharati
Prasar Bharati is a statutory autonomous body established under the Prasar Bharati Act and
came into existence on 23.11.1997. It is the Public Service Broadcaster of the country. The
objectives of public service broadcasting are achieved in terms of Prasar Bharati Act through All
India Radio and Doordarshan, which earlier were working as media units under the Ministry
of I&B and since the above said date became constituents of Prasar Bharati.

AIR
As India’s National Broadcaster and also the premier Public Service Broadcaster, All India
Radio (AIR) has been serving to inform, educate and entertain the masses since it's inception,
truly living up to its motto – ‘Bahujan Hitaya : Bahujan Sukhaya’. One of the largest
broadcasting organisations in the world in terms of the number of languages of broadcast, the
spectrum of socio-economic and cultural diversity it serves, AIR’s home service comprises 420
stations today located across the country, reaching nearly 92% of the country’s area and 99.19 %
of the total population. AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 179 dialects.   

1. The Times of India

2. Hindustan Times
3. The Hindu

Zee Entertainment
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited is a media and entertainment company engaged in
providing broadcasting services. The Company operates through Content and Broadcasting
segment. It offers content in multiple languages and offers approximately 38 international and
over 30 domestic channels. The Company has a library, housing over 222,703 hours of television
content. The Company holds rights to approximately 3,820 movie titles. The Company's brands
include Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zee Action, Zee Classic, Zee Anmol, Zee Cafe, Zee Studio, Zee
Salaam, Zing, ETC Bollywood, Zee Q and Zindagi. The Company has a range of offering in the
regional language domain with channels, such as Zee Marathi, Zee Talkies, Zee Bangla, Zee
Bangla Cinema, Zee Telugu, Zee Kannada, Zee Tamil and Sarthak TV. It high definition
offerings include Zee TV HD, Zee Cinema HD, &tv HD, Zee Studio HD, Zee Cafe HD,
&pictures HD, Ten 1 HD and Ten Golf HD. The Company has operations in over 170 countries.
Zee TV is an Indian cable and satellite television channel owned and operated by Zee
Entertainment Enterprises, a media and entertainment company based in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
[1]
It airs programming in Hindi. The channel is also available in various nations of Southeast
Asia, Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, Australasia and North America. A part of
the Essel Group, it started to broadcast on 2 October 1992 as the first Hindi-language cable
channel in India.[2]
Zee TV HD was launched on 15 August 2011 along with Zee Cinema HD, Zee Studio HD. It
overhauled its logo on 15 October 2017, along with all other channels of the Zee Entertainment
Enterprises.

The Times of India

Times of India Group provides multimedia services. The Company publishes newspaper,
magazines, and books, as well as operates television and radio stations. Times of India Group
serves customers throughout India.
We are India’s most diversified Media Company in world’s fastest growing media market. We
have strong presence in Newspapers, Magazines, Radio, Television and Internet domains. Our
brands like Radio Mirchi, Femina, and Filmfare are market leaders in their respective segments.
Our flagship brand, The Times of India, is the world’s largest selling English daily, and The
Economic Times is the world’s 2nd largest English Daily after Wall Street Journal. Innovation is
the core value of our organization and we have many firsts in the industry to our credit.
This innovation in our DNA has ensured that we consistently grew faster than Sensex in the last
25 years. The Company has 7,000 employees across all major cities in India.

Global media economy

Press Trust of India (PTI) is the largest news agency in India.[1] It is headquartered in New
Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 500 Indian newspapers and has more than
1,000 full-time employees, as of January 22, 2016.[2][3] It employs over 400 journalists and 500
part-time correspondents located in most of the district headquarters in the country. [4] A few
correspondents are based in major capitals and important business centres around the world. It
took over the operations of the Associated Press of India from Reuters after India's
independence in 1947. It provides news coverage and information of the region in both English
and Hindi. Its corporate office is located at Sansad Marg, New Delhi and registered office in D N
Road, Mumbai.

BBC
The BBC is the only entirelyPublic Servicemedia organisation in the UK, although the three
other terrestrial TV channels do have to have some elements of public service broadcasting
including screening regular news bulletins.
Media institutions have various ways of getting their message and their products across to
audiences. They can broadcast their message this means aiming at a mass audiencethrough a
mass medium such as television or radio. They can go for narrowcasting, which means targeting
a specific audience. This term is important in the current digital era because it refers to
fragmented audiences.

Reuters 
is an international news agency headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is a division
of Thomson Reuters. Until 2008, the Reuters news agency formed part of an independent
company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data. Since the
acquisition of Reuters Group by the Thomson Corporation in 2008, the Reuters news agency has
been a part of Thomson Reuters, making up the media division. Reuters transmits
newsin English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Urdu, Arabic, Japanese, 
Korean, and Chinese. It was established in 1851.

What is alternative media?

Alternative media are forms of media that differ from the current established mainstream,
whether it be by content, format, or distribution. Alternative media can be print, digital, audio,
video, and so on. Alternative media is a form of mass media that has arisen as a contrast to
mainstream media. Mainstream media is mass media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines,
movies, Internet, etc.) that disseminate information that is inline with the thoughts, 
The Internet is at the forefront of today’s alternative media.  It is easy and affordable to produce
something over the Internet; combined with its relatively uncontrolled nature even the most
stringent government and/or corporate Internet controls can be worked around by those with
computer expertise and its ability to reach large groups of people simultaneously and easily, this
makes online sources of alternative media extremely popular.  Furthermore, the multimedia
nature of the Internet allows for other forms of alternative media, such as the underground press,
radio and television, to transmit via online sources, such as text documents, podcasts and videos,
respectively.

Alternative media are media that differ from established or dominant types of media in terms of their
content, production, or distribution.  Alternative media take many forms including print, audio, video,
Internet and street art. 
Alternative media outlets tend to be smaller, and in many cases are polarized toward conservative and
liberal perspectives. Like mainstream media, alternative or independent, media outlets are found
online, on the radio, in newspapers or other publications and to a lesser extent, on television.
"Democracy Now!" is an alternative news program broadcast online, on television and on the radio in
some areas of the country. Many alternative media outlets have less funding and smaller budgets than
mainstream media, so it is often easiest to find alternative media sources online, since creating a
website is typically less expensive than operating a radio or television station, for example.

Some of examples for alternative media

- Fliers (like flag or big size balloon)
- Handouts
- Super market video displays
- Exhibition audio announcements
- Yellow pages
- Free ads
- Moving display in vehicles