Studies in Media

There are literally hundreds of career options in Media. But which one is the right one for you? I get many students who have the wrong notion of what the Industry is about. Some come in with stars in their eyes, seeing only the glamour that is associated with the media. They either want to become actors, news anchors, or someone who is seen on screens. There are some who think they are great photographers, cinematographers, or DOPs (Director of Photography) as they are called now. But making those short films using a handycam, shooting a documentary with a DSLR does NOT mean that you become a DOP overnight. Or just because you have directed a couple of short films does NOT make you a Director in the Industry. Some also are very passionate about going into film production. I have seen many students who, after a few days find that job exhausting, and learn the hard way that they are not fit for the production side. There is also a notion that just because you do a course in Manageme

This is a question I have been often asked during my 16 years in media education. There are benefits and limitations in both.  So what do you get in a degree course? Well, you get a degree, of course. Along with that you get very good theoretical and conceptual understanding of the subjects. After getting a PG degree, you can further do your NET/SLET and get into the teaching profession, or do your M.Phil., or Ph.D. Teaching is a great profession, and many have made careers in teaching. I too, am a teacher in media! Only, teaching is not just a profession, but a mission. And unless you treat it such, you are bound to fail. And I do make a sincere request. Do spend at least a couple of years in the industry, learn the ropes before you enter the teaching profession. This is for your own good, and more importantly you will do justice to the profession and your students who look up to you. Alternately, you can enter the industry. But unless you have practical knowledge / training

So are you done with your graduation? Just appeared for your final exams? And now looking forward to join a PG Course in Media, Advertising, Public Relations, Journalism, Film making, Television, Digital Marketing? There are several courses and institutes. But how do you choose? Here are some tips: Look at the syllabus:  Check out the syllabus of the institute. Is it updated? Ask the institute when it was last updated. Does it include the latest requirements by the industry? Check out the faculty:  Media training requires faculty that are trained in the latest techniques and technology. It requires working journalists, working PR professionals, film makers, ad professionals, because that is what gives you the edge over others. See how many faculty are in-house, and check their qualifications and experience in media. Check the list of faculty on the website of the institute. Contact students, get a feedback:  Either when you visit the institute, or search online, connect with s

Marc Prensky coined the terms Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives in 2001. He explains how Digital Immigrant teachers - those who were not born in the digital age have learnt to adopt the new technology, and learnt to teach Digital Natives - the younger generation who are born digital. I always call myself a successful digital immigrants someone who have not been just a witness, but an active participant in this digital media evolution. I have imbibed the digital DNA into my own, and sort of become an instant 'digital mutant' several times over, simply to survive, and not perish in the digital tsunami. I teach digital media production and marketing to students doing their postgraduate courses in advertising, entertainment, and digital marketing at the MET Institute of Mass Media , and have to be constantly on my toes, upgrading myself, to remain relevant. But that will change soon - sooner than we thought. India has one of the world's cheapest data connectivity

For people in their 50's like me, the evolution of digital technology has been surprising, overwhelming, disrupting and overwhelming. I had not even seen a television set till I entered senior college, had seen the computer only in SciFi and James Bond movies let alone touch it. I never thought I would ever make a film, simply because my family did not have deep pockets. For us, even owning a telephone was a luxury, and no thought of a mobile phone ever crossed our minds. I remember the time when I was first introduced to a computer in 1989; I was almost afraid to touch it. I remember how gingerly I used the mouse. I bought my first computer in 1992, which was a 386, with a 120 MB hard drive and a 4 MB RAM! And when there came along a 1.2 GB hard drive, we thought it could not get better than this. For the last about 100,000 years, we, the Homo sapiens have evolved with nature. We have got used to the sun, the moon, the weather, and the sunrise and sunset diurnal cycle. We fee

When a was a newbie web designer sooooo many years back, we used to be very excited when we counted so many 'hits' on our website. One of the first ever websites in India on trekking 'indiantreks.com' was made by me way back on 1998-99 when the Internet was so new. We used to do a lot of things to get in the top 10 in the search ranking, but at that time it used to be Yahoo and not Google. The spiders used by search engines used to primarily look at 3 things: 1. The keywords in the metatags 2. The text in your page 3. The number of backlinks We used many tricks to get into the top 10.... One was to have text and links in the same colour as that of the page. This kept the text hidden on the browser, but the spiders were fooled into thinking that the page had a lot of backlinks. Second was to spam the meta tags with lots and lots of keywords, again for the spiders to take notice I had paid Rs.3500/- to book the indiantreks domain, but as domains became chea

Let me tell you a story I read when I was in the 3rd or 4th standard, probably in Chandamama the children's monthly. A greedy man prays, does tapascharya , and pleases God. God appears before the man and asks him his wish. " Var maango, vatsa ", God says. The man says, "I want to ask you a few questions before I wish for anything". "Go ahead", God says. "We are so small, so all that is in heaven must be bigger than here on earth?" God replies in affirmative. So the man asks, "How much is your 1 kilo?" "It is like million tons." "And one acre?" "Like a continent" "And 1 litre"? "Like one of your oceans." Pleased, the man thinks for a while and says, "God, I am not greedy. I wish for just one acre of land, and only 100 rupees. Please grant me my wish." God says, "Sure Vatsa , I will certainly grant you your wish. I will make the arrangements, and wi

The Media and Communication sector, essentially has only one product - content. Content that touches the lives of people, affects the senses, invades privacy, content that becomes a part of our daily lives. Media products do not distinguish between, religion, caste, creed, status, or your geography or region. What we see on television is what the world sees. What we aspire for is what the world aspires for. And the products that we produce are for everyone's consumption. There are no geographical boundaries anymore. I visited some remote villages in Maharashtra with my students for their Rural Immersion Program. The villages of Waghawale, Morni, Arav, Valvan and Chakdev are largely cut off from the rest of the world, especially in terms of transportation and mobile connectivity. There is just one bus that arrives in the evening and leaves in the morning. We found mobile connectivity in just 2 places, and that too with a poor signal. No newspapers are delivered to this entire a

We say this again. To be successful in manager in the media and communication sector, a management training program should also have creative courses in the curriculum. Citing from the article below, Excel Sheets don't make successful media products, at the same time, artistic brooding also doesn't. There has to be a balance of both to make a successful film. "Industry insiders, admittedly those on the creative side, say the MBAs running studios do not understand story, script, or screenplay. So they play safe by signing on the biggest star they can. That done, they get the director the star wants. And then they look around for a script. If the movie fails, they can always say it is not their fault, after all, they did get the most saleable star." Do read up folks, you will understand why the Advanced Diplomas in Management in Advertising, Entertainment, Digital Marketing, and Diplomas in Journalism and PR at MET Institute of Mass Media will help you for getting

Why is designing our communication so important? Let me give you some examples... Last week, I got an SMS saying that some money had been credited to my account. Well, if someone is kind enough to give me money without asking me, they are welcome. But I was curious to know who this kind soul was. So I called up customer care, input the data for the IVR menu and ultimately reached an executive. In a rasping voice he asked in Hindi, "Namaskar, mai xxx, aapki kya sahayata kar sakta hoon"? This, despite having requested for English as the language of choice. When I decided to speak in English, I was replied again in Hindi. When I persisted by asking my next  question in English, I got replies in broken not so fluent English.  I then started speaking in Hindi and my queries got solved within no time. The point is, I had to design my communication to suit the situation. Had I persisted to speak in English, it would have taken probably twice the time I had to spend. I h

All visuals have a message. Some are created by us, some, by nature. The beholder/receiver of the message analyses the message, makes meaning out of it; the visual generates responses at several levels. There are several factors that have an effect on our perception of a visual. According to Norman, there are three levels of design: visceral, behavior, and reflective. At the visceral level, which is based on instinct, physical features like look, feel, and sound dominate. When we perceive something as “pretty”, that judgment comes directly from the visceral level.  Behavior design concerns the use, or ease of use where appearance may not be significant. In most behavior design functionality gets the top priority.  In a reflective design message, culture and the meaning of a product gets priority.  However, today, consumers are more critical, prone to analyse a visual at the visceral and behavior level, so the designing is done to evoke emotion, arouse past experiences, create

The Internet was launched in India in 1995. Interestingly, India's mobile services were also launched in the same year. When I got my first mobile phone in 1997, it was a heavy walkie-talkie like machine, which, had to be held in the hand, for the fear of tearing away my pocket.! The outgoing call rate, when I got my mobile was about Rs.12 outgoing and Rs.6 incoming! We had a second-to-second billing plan too. It used to be very funny, with people making as short a call as possible to avoid hefty phone bills. I remember, I had a client who would ask me if I was calling from my mobile, and if I answered yes, would immediately cut the line and call be back from his landline. It was convenient to own a mobile, and it was also a status symbol, but it was damned expensive. In 2003, Reliance launched its CDMA technology based mobile services, after laying out 80000 kms. of fibre cables across the length and breadth of the country. Everywhere you went, you could see the Reliance work

I was working for a pharmaceutical company and posted as Manager in Ahmedabad for two years - 1989 to 1991. Those days were quite turbulent, one, on my professional front, because I was trying to make inroads into a very tough pharmaceutical market, and second on the political front. Those days were of unrest, and riots during the time of Lalkrishna Advani's Ram Rath Yatra. I saw the horrors of mindless killing, and mob fury first-hand. During Diwali, rarely now, but I still wake up from deep sleep in the middle of the night thinking there is police firing going on somewhere. This was also a period of turmoil in the music industry. In July 1990, the film Aashiqui was released and became a super duper hit. But the credit for its success goes to its music, which was released in 1989 by Gulshan Kumar. This is a story in itself. Coming from a humble background, Gulshan Kumar began his career in the music industry by producing cheap cassettes of music of older hit films. With no cl

When I leave my College after 6.30 p.m., I usually catch Market Mantra on the All India Radio while driving home. Apart from the happenings in the stock market, experts are called to discuss economy and developmental issues of the country. In one of the broadcasts a few days back, there was an interesting discussion on infrastructure development and the importance of power generation. Though I did not catch the name of the expert, he made some important points. He spoke about how the present government was quite on track in the development of infrastructure, but was quite critical about the issue of power generation. He said that one of the industries that the government was trying to get to invest in India was the electronic industry, more specifically, the companies manufacturing Integrated Circuits, which  are the heart of all electronic goods. To manufacture electronic chips, the plants require uninterrupted power supply. Even a second of interruption can severely affect the qua

Is 'New Media' always digital? Is it really 'social'? Well, in contemporary times, probably yes. But then, wasn't print a new medium when it was invented?  And radio, and then television? With every 'new' medium, there have been social, political and economic changes, because we have been exposed to different thoughts, ideas and challenges with each of them. With every new medium, there have been changes in how we receive, use and disseminate information. The difference between the 'older' new media and the newer ones is that the content is now stored in a binary form. It is now digital, rather than analogue. Instead of storing data on tapes and records, we now store data in microchips. Instead of data being 'fixed' it is now in a state of flux. This enables content to be converted from one form to another easily and equally easily distributed allowing trans-mediality. Apart from the way content is stored, even the way in which it is p

For the uninitiated, Google (Google Earth) has a feature called the Streetview. The Google Streetview car roams around the streets, clicking pictures as it drives by. These pictures are then stitched together to give you a virtual walkthrough. It's an amazing application, but now seems to be creating a lot of controversy, raising privacy concerns. Citizens are demanding that their street, houses should not be photographed by the car. Pic source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217775/Google_Street_View_blocked_in_Bangalore The other issue is security. After 26/11 in Mumbai, there is generally a lot of concern over security issues. The Karnataka Government has refused to allow the Google Streetview car to photograph sections of Bengaluru. This is going to spark off a debate on technology, government, privacy concerns, freedom of speech, etc. Click here for an article that has appeared on the rediff.com com home page tonight.