News Aesthetics and Myth

This book considers the presence of media illiteracy in a world in which we are supposedly consumed by media, live a media life, in a media ecosystem, surrounded by mediated communication. Unpacking this paradoxical situation, the author proposes that before venturing into media literacy, we must first understand the workings of how mystification occurs. Departing from the idea that aesthetics work on an agreed set of principles between art and society, the author applies this ideology of aesthetics to news-based narration. Using empirical cases from India, the author proposes demystification as a possible methodology to approach media illiteracy and recommends completely transformed media literacy programs that deliver to communities, drawing from the construct of critical pedagogy. The book offers the possibilities for a collectivistic, non-Western, postcolonialist model of learning by using the very collective and hierarchical identities of societies that must be critiqued. This vital and innovative book will be an important resource for scholars and students in the areas of media literacy and critical media literacy, media education, journalism, mass communication, aesthetics and media technology.

Shashidhar Nanjundaiah holds a PhD in Mass Communication and Media Arts from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, an MS in Corporate and Professional Communication from Radford University, Virginia, and an MA in English and a BSc in Physics from the University of Mysore, India. His career has straddled the distance from banking to media practice and his current vocation as an academic administrator and teacher.

Introduction: Is there a problem? 1. The discomfort with media literacy 2. Trust, promise, and duty 3. Post-reflexive modernity 4. Continuity in postcolonial narration 5. Aesthetics, presentation, absentation 6. Case study: The spectacle of India's Potemkin village 7. News aesthetics and the narrative structure 8. Case study: Invisibility in Boolgarhi 9. Towards demystification of media illiteracy 10. An evaluative framework Conclusion: Some reflections