Usha Raman and Sumana Kasturi, "Childscape, Mediascape: Children and Media in India" (Orient BlackSwan, 2023)

Children are considered to be a group of special interest by media scholars and advocates, especially because they are seen as a vulnerable group whose rights must be protected and also because they represent the future of the world, and so their education and socialisation is of particular importance. While there has been global research on children’s media practices, in India, there has been very little critical work in this area.

Usha Raman and Sumana Kasturi’s edited book Childscape, Mediascape: Children and Media in India (Orient BlackSwan, 2023) fills this gap by bringing together, for the first time, a variety of perspectives from media researchers, practitioners and those involved in secondary school education, with a focus on children, childhood and media. Questioning what it means to ‘grow up digital’ in twenty-first century India, this collection explores a variety of themes relating to children and the media landscape. The volume contains twelve essays on relevant topics such as digital media literacy among children and their new media practices; mediated childhood and child rights; children as both consumers and producers of social media; digitality and education; children’s entertainment and leisure practices, and issues of identity, representation and community in a mediated world. The book also contains a comprehensive introduction by the volume editors.

This volume will be of value to scholars of media and communication studies and cultural studies, while also drawing readers from psychology and journalism. The chapters offer critical insights of relevance to parents, teacher training institutes, child-focused NGOs, and others who work with children.

Rituparna Patgiri, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. She has a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her research interests lie in the areas of food, media, gender and public. She is also one of the co-founders of Doing Sociology. Patgiri can be reached at @Rituparna37 on Twitter.

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