FSU research on South Asian Media was well-represented at the July 12-16, 2015 meetings of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Montreal, Quebec. The annual conference moves to a different location each year, and was hosted by the University of Quebec in Montreal in 2015.

Awais Saleem, a doctoral student in the School of Communication, prepared the paper, “Framing the Conflict: Coverage of Indian elections 2014 in Pakistani Press.” Mr. Saleem examined how three English language newspapers covered India’s elections, and asked whether and how the conflicts that have defined the India-Pakistan relationship for 65 years have shaped the framing of these news items.

Editorials examining drone strikes in South Asia in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post over a ten year period were explored in a presentation by Barbara Robinson of the FSU College of Applied Studies, and research affiliate South Asian Media and Cultural Studies group.

She presented a paper by Azmat Rasul (School of Communication), Stephen McDowell (School of Communication), Barbara Robinson & Defne Bilir on “Moral Disengagement and War on Terror: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Drone Strikes in the US Elite Press.” The paper argued that while the editorials raised a number of concerns, they supported procedural changes in approvals of targets rather than an outright end to the use of drones.

Defne Bilir, a Visiting Scholar in the FSU School of Communication, presented the paper “Through the Lens of David Douglas Duncan: Picturing the End of the British Raj in India, in 1947.”

The paper, by Defne Bilir, Stephen D. McDowell, Azmat Rasul & Kelly Croy, considers how photographs appearing in U.S. news magazines were produced and selected for publication, and their significance for readers’ understanding of the new nations of India and Pakistan. Ms. Croy, an undergraduate student in the College of Education, joined the project as part of the FSU Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP).

Awais Saleem & Stephen McDowell, also delivered the paper, “Social Media in Indian Politics: Promises and Implications.” The paper highlighted the use of social media by political parties in the 2014 elections in India, and related these developments to broader theory and research findings in political communication.

More information about South Asian Media and Cultural Studies at FSU can be found here.