Azmat Rasul

Bollywood and the Indian Premier League (IPL): the political economy of Bollywood's new blockbuster

This paper interrogates the interrelationships between sports and popular culture to facilitate an understanding of the converging areas between political and economic forces and cultural practices operative in the global marketplace. Using a critical political economy approach, it examines the innovatively formatted and media-friendly Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament and the Bollywood stars who are involved as owners and promoters of the league. The profit-generating capacity of cricket has increased the interest of the corporate sector and the entertainment industries, resulting in the spectaclization, commercialization, and corporatization of the popular sport.

Online Activity, Alcohol Use, and Internet Delinquency Among Korean Youth: A Multilevel Approach

This study examined the effects of online activity and alcohol use on Internet delinquency using data sets from the Korea Youth Panel Survey and focusing on adolescents in their 10th grade in high school (Wave 3). The current study investigated differences in Internet delinquency at Level 1 and Level 2. The units of Level 1 were students and those of Level 2 were schools. The total sample size for this study was 2,854 students at Level 1 and 166 schools at Level 2. Given the hierarchical nature of this data set, this study used hierarchical generalized linear modeling to determine that those youth who drank, used computer games, and used mobile phones were more likely to engage in Internet delinquency compared to nondrinkers, non–computer users, and non–mobile phone users.

Promoting patriotism through mediated sports: Political economy of Bollywood sports movies

ABSTRACT Through the lens of political economy of communication and sports, this article examines the role of Bollywood’s sports movies in promoting patriotism and constructing an Indian national identity. Focusing on three popular movies premiered in the last decade, Dil Bole Hadippa (2009), Chak De! India (2007), and Lahore (2010), we explicate how Bollywood mobilized patriotic codes through these films in ways that are advantageous for the Indian government and the economic goals of the industry.

Excessive Regulation Through Bureaucratic Bullying: Evaluating Broadcast Regulation in South Asia

This article highlights the intricacies and perplexities involved in policymaking in the area of communication. Policymaking in the field of communication is considered a measured intervention by the government in the structural designs and business plans of companies offering media and communication services. In developing countries such as India and Pakistan, where privatization of electronic media and its regulation are nascent experiences, communication regulation grows even more complex. This study compares broadcasting regulation in Pakistan and India through the lens of normative models of media performance. The article examines why and how the bureaucratic powers have hampered the process of broadcast regulation in India and Pakistan. The comparison is heuristically significant despite social and political difference between Pakistan and India, as both countries have inherited similar laws governing broadcasting from the British colonial rule and most of the pre-partition regulations are still in place. The article concludes that a great deal of political effort is required to establish independent regulatory authorities in both countries due to the overarching control of bureaucracies in both societies.

The Taliban factor: conflict in Afghanistan and elite South Asian newspapers†

ABSTRACT We analysed the editorial treatment of Taliban in the elite English press of India and Pakistan during January 2008 to December 2009. The study critically evaluated the relationship between elite press and the governments of the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan, and discussed how media framed Taliban in the context of foreign policies of the South Asian neighbours having important stakes in the conflict-ravaged Afghanistan. The central focus of the study was the stated foreign policy positions of India and Pakistan on Taliban factor in Afghanistan and the approach used by the elite press of these countries in responding to the initiatives of foreign office. We employed qualitative content analysis to analyse editorials of two English newspapers (The Hindu and Dawn), which helped us examine framing of the foreign policy initiatives of India and Pakistan. We found that the elite English newspapers followed the official foreign policy of India and Pakistan while covering war in Afghanistan and Taliban at a time when the entire region was in the grip of terror attacks.

Learning through entertainment: The effects of Bollywood movies on the job-seeking behavior of South Asian female

This study examined the relationship between exposure to Bollywood movies and job-seeking behavior of South Asian females. Using survey data collected from 132 female participants, we explored the effects of exposure to Bollywood movies on job search self-efficacy, enjoyment and job-seeking behavior of South Asian females living in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, India, and Pakistan. We also applied a structural equation model to examine the role of enjoyment and job search self-efficacy in mediating the relationship between frequency of exposure to Bollywood movies and job-seeking behavior. Results indicated that exposure to Bollywood movies was positively related to enjoyment and job-seeking behavior of the female viewers of Bollywood movies. We also found a significant relationship between job search self-efficacy and job-seeking behavior. Our study offers a significant insight into the role of entertainment narratives in influencing the behavior of South Asian female audiences that hitherto remained a neglected group in media effects research.

Images of oppression

Abstract For the last three decades, Afghanistan has suffered under foreign occupation forces and internal fundamentalist groups. Approximately six million Afghans migrated to the neighboring countries – Pakistan and Iran – after the conflict commenced in the late 1970s that disrupted the basic fabric of the Afghan society. Even today, after 30 years of ceaseless war among internal groups and external forces, the Afghan society is in total chaos with high levels of unemployment, homelessness, and anarchy. The military occupation of Afghanistan in the recent decade following 2001 and the previous Taliban control for nearly five years has left Afghan social structure in complete disarray. The social and political problems emanating from Afghan society affect not only the region but also other parts of the world. Beyond doubt, Afghan people have suffered tremendously, but the most affected segment of the society is the women. Their plight goes largely unnoticed in global media, which focuses on the coverage of conflict and diplomacy most often conducted by powerful men. National and international media intermittently focus on Afghan women living in large cities under the control of Afghan official security agencies backed by an international coalition force; however, local or international journalists rarely approach women living in the rural areas, which constitute the bulk of Afghan territory. The paltry coverage, if ever, offered to the Afghan women is strategically used to advance foreign policy agendas by demeaning and dehumanizing the ‘enemy’ by employing stereotypes that lack an understanding of the Afghan culture and one divorced from reality.

Violently Entertained: A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Mediated Violence on Enjoyment

This meta-analysis addressed the effects of mediated violence on the enjoyment audiences experienced after exposure to a diverse array of entertainment programmes. Published journal articles were collected and effect sizes were analyzed to examine if there were differences in the enjoyment of violent content. Through the lens of a fixed effects model, the results indicated that the morality of audiences and nature of visual media did not impact enjoyment of violence and the selected studies shared a statistically significant common effect size (d = 0.33). Although synthesized data signified a fairly homogenous effect of mediated violence on enjoyment, the studies employing morality and video games as moderators were heterogeneous. The current study offered guidelines for further inquiry to explicate the nature of heterogeneity and generalizability of the study results.

How US newspapers framed the Arab Spring

The Arab Spring protests have attracted the continued attention of policy makers, news media and academia alike. The protest literature strongly suggests that groups that pose a greater threat to the status quo are more negatively treated in the news. This study compares the valence in news headline and body, along with the level of deviance in protests goals and tactics, across selected Eastern and Western news media stories. The study uses (N = 190) news stories from six prominent news organisations, representing Western and Eastern mediums, to assess news treatment while considering variables like level of deviance in goals and tactics, before and after peak period of the Arab Spring, and distinct news frames. The findings show that deviance level in goals and tactics are significant factors in determining their news treatment by both mediums. Recommendations for future research in this direction, with added variables in the light of the current findings, are discussed.

Diversity or homogeny: concentration of ownership and media diversity in Pakistan

Using democratic participant theory as a framework to explain media performance, this article examines the implications of ownership concentration and diversity on democracy and analyzes the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authoritys (PEMRA) endeavors to implement the principle of diversity as espoused in its mandate. It finds that though PEMRA accelerated the growth of electronic media in Pakistan, it failed to promote local and diverse media as PEMRA policies supported diagonal integration and lead to concentration of ownership. PEMRA was also criticized for suppressing independent media when it was brought under the control of Ministry of Information in 2007. The study concludes that regulatory mechanisms in developing countries like Pakistan are still a tool in the hands of the government to control media, and development of a participatory and diverse media is a normative ideal not yet translated into reality.