Mass Media and Journalism Education in India

Abstract

The research analyzed the originality of the Indian media system and the peculiarities of journalism education in India. The importance of the subject of research is connected both with the growing role of India, the most populous country in the world, and with its huge economic potential. The foreign economic reorientation of Russia towards Asian countries opens up new opportunities for international partnership in the field of vocational education. To do this, it is important to understand what the system of journalism education is in India, which educational centers offer journalism training, and what are the competitive differences between the departments of journalism in this country. The socio-demographic characteristics of India, where half of the population (over 700 million) are under 30 years old, are most directly related to the dominant media practices and to the quantitative parameters of the media system. Another important factor influencing the state of the Indian media is the multilingualism and basic English spoken by millions of Hindus, which, along with Hindi, remains the official lingua franca. The third systemic factor revealed in the discussion of the problems of mass media and journalism education, is the country's recent history and anti-colonial thinking, which is generated by the opposition of «metropolis» — «outskirts of the empire». Analyzing the multi-level structure of higher education in India and the nature of the curricula at the schools of journalism, we are coming to the conclusion about the strategic benefits of cooperation with this country.