A symposium on ‘Current Trends in Media & Communication Studies Research’ was conducted by Prof. Ruchi Jaggi - Director - SIMC Pune; Prof. Vikas Dogra - Chairperson - Department of Journalism, HP University Shimla and Dr. Divya Sharma - Professor - Western Connecticut State University. Dr. Manish Verma, Director, ASCO, AUH welcomed the gathering and stated how the field of Media & Communication has evolved in the last two decades. Prof. U.N. Singh, Dean. Amity School of Languages, Gurgaon stated that though he hasn’t studied communication but is involved in an indirect way in the field. He talked about the creativity aspect of communications and the vlogs and blogs being created on the various social media platforms. He called for studying communication from the aspect of creativity.
Prof. Ruchi Jaggi talked about interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary aspect of communication studies. She talked about how to look at the idea of media and communication research and the various opportunities existing in this field. She averred that research is a “detailed study of a subject to discover new information and reach a new understanding” and how research is to discover. Research helps to discover new knowledge, theoretical, practical, make a difference and inspire action. She also detailed about the need for using research methods that includes to evaluate information critically; to understand the value of rigour of a process over intuitive judgments; to develop a comprehensive approach to answering a research question and learning the importance of context, focus, framework & structure to develop sharp and nuanced arguments. She shared that Mass Communication is based in a vast and diverse theoretical domain and derives its methodological diversity from multiple domains.
Media as public sphere is expected to perform certain roles and responsibilities and how all media research is based in a convergence perspective & is interdisciplinary. She averred that media research is grounded in the society, in the communication, cultural understandings, concerns and sometimes even manipulations. She shared with students how to start thinking about their research questions focusing on what issues are emerging in the literature; what research problems could be answere to benefit society; what contemporary topics are being discussed in the media; what experiences from your background might lead to research study; who can you collaborate with to develop a research problem; what issues are faculty researching, teaching and discussing and what issues are industry professionals facing in the field.
Prof. Vikas Dogra talked about ‘Communication Research Trends: Deep Thinking Vs Deep fake!’ He stated the current research trends and methodologies including Central Analysis, Content Analysis, Media Analysis, Audience Analysis and Effect Analysis & Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Method. He further elaborated upon research on how & why people use social media and the resultant study. He advised students to use qualitative techniques of data collection, not be lazy, to read, add layers, forget the theory of everything and publish more.
Dr. Divya Sharma talked about Communication and Media Research about topics of Crime and Justice (Visual Criminology) and shared insights on topics related to surrounding scenarios. She averred that Media studies, describing is the starting point & one must explore and evaluate. She added that social media has grown leaps and bounds and describes how it takes the centre stage in setting the trends. She stated that it’s not just what to communicate but how to and stressed on the need for research on media ethics & its application on immediate and current environment. Dr. Sharma called for research to be ‘rooted in local’ and called for Indian studies, data, voices & context. She stated that research must be, at least in part, aimed at understanding problems around us and offer possible solutions through policymaking.