Communication Today Celebrates 100 Years Of Media Education In India With Special Issues

Jaipur: Media journal ‘Communication Today’ has brought out two special issues to commemorate 100 years of media education in India.

The journal’s editor, Professor Sanjeev Bhanawat said the January-March and April-June issues include critical articles on media education in the country.

The special issues also have articles from all states and union territories where media education is being imparted through central and state universities, private and deemed universities and institutions.

The articles detail the beginning and development of media education in each state and union territory and have discussed the contribution of media educators and professionals.

“The need for media education at university level was felt almost a hundred years ago,” Prof Bhanawat was quoted as saying in a media release.

“It is believed that the first formal media course began at Adyar University in Chennai in 1920 in the Faculty of Arts by the efforts of Dr Annie Besant,” he added.

However, according to Prof G Ravindra of the Central University of Tamil Nadu, the first media course started in the National College of Commerce, National University, Chennai, in 1917. After that, senior journalist Raham Ali Al Hashmi started a diploma programme at Aligarh Muslim University in Uttar Pradesh.

Hashmi even authored the first book on journalism in the Indian subcontinent, titled ‘Fan-e-Sahafat’. But these efforts did not sustain for long.

Prof PP Singh started a journalism course at Punjab University, Lahore, in 1941 in a more organised manner. The post-graduate programme admitted 40 students in each batch. After Partition, its camp office shifted to Delhi in 1947.

Prof Singh had studied journalism in the US and the UK. The programme ran from Delhi for some time and then shifted to Punjab University, Chandigarh in 1962.

Prof Bhanawat said during its 25 years of publication, Communication Today has brought out special issues on ‘Covid-19 and Media’; ‘Interplay between Electronic and Print Media’; ‘Wither Journalism and PR Education’; ‘Human Rights and Media’ and ‘Code of Conduct for Media Practitioners’