ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a contextual background to this study, illuminating the colonial communication strategies and contestations of the same. It provides a trajectory of the origins, development, and role of the press in colonial India and South Africa, as well as the status of international news agencies during the nineteenth century. The chapter elucidates the growth of print media in India and explores the development of alternative modes of communication as an integral part of the resistance against colonial power and the repression of the press. It also examines the growth of mass media in South Africa at that point in time, which was controlled by the European colonists, and traces the emergence of an independent, Black-owned and -controlled press in the late nineteenth century in resistance to European imperialism and colonialism. The chapter throws light on the emergence and role of international news agencies, particularly Reuters, in both India and South Africa. This chapter, therefore, sets the stage to reveal the history of Gandhi’s engagement with the Press.
