Media usage profile: a study of Gujjar community of India†

Abstract

Media usage has become an important component of our everyday lives. The use of media has become omnipresent in today’s Information Technology era. The adoption of various media is blurring geographical, social and economic barriers. Geographical and economic barriers have been overcome owing to advancement of affordable technology and social barriers have been relaxed owing to mixing of various cultures in a globalised world. But has this penetration of media reached the marginalised sections of the society? This paper tried to study the use of media among marginalised communities. It aimed to understand if the media has defied the barriers for those who are geographically isolated as well as socially and, economically backward. This study found that even now marginalised was not able to access much of media. Very few were able to access traditional media including newspaper, television and radio but the present study revealed that most of the marginalised households were having mobile phones. Mobile phone was found to have broken geographical, social and economic boundaries as compared to other media. Mobile phone can be a good agent of bringing about desired changes among marginalised communities.