ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on print and broadcasting media and, later, a more integrated view of India’s media ecology. Pre-newspaper publications such as newsletters disseminating information existed during the pre-Mughal as well as the Mughal era. Indian-language journalism in the colonial era had to develop within the framework of the dual attitude of the East India Company (EIC) towards English and the vernacular press. A proliferating commercial print culture, a new generation of administrators and editors, missionaries and elites open to new ideas led to demands for a free press, as opposed to the repressive attitude of the EIC. By 1947 when India gained Independence, radio broadcasting had taken shape as a state-owned medium, while the print media were privately owned. The adversarial attitude of the privately owned Indian press, by default, compelled the establishment to develop and depend on other mass media, particularly broadcasting.
