SNDT COLLEGE OF HOME SCIENCE

SNDT COLLEGE OF HOME SCIENCE (NAAC ACCB B+) PUNE

ACONSTITUENT COLLEGE OF SNDT WOMEN'S UNIVERSITY, MUMBAI

Department of Communication Media For Children

Brief History

The field of Mass Media and Communication is growing rapidly in India and the last decade has seen mushrooming of a variety of courses being offered by various institutions. Unfortunately as the media is becoming more and more commercialized the needs of children who are the most vulnerable group of the society are being sacrificed. Children, as research has continuously pointed out are the keenest watchers of television. Other than the absence of appropriate media material for children, it is relevant to note that whilst many courses are being offered to train media professionals in the field, none of these are sensitive to the needs of children, or are training students to produce and conduct research on the needs and effects of media and children

Broadly the objectives of the department are:

	To train women into a fast growing field of mass media with special interest in producing material for children
	To develop prototype media material for children and test its effectiveness.
	To develop a resource center and become a clearinghouse of media material for and about children.
	To develop a research center dealing with children and media.

DEPARTMENT ACTIVITIES
1. Master's Program

The department offers a two-year master's course in Communication Media for Children with the objective of training professionals in the field of media, who are sensitive to the needs of the children. The program focuses equally on theoretical course work and practical experience. Other than regular subjects offered in mass communication courses, there are innovative courses like ‘Social Impact of Media', ‘Children & Television', ‘Creative Media for Children’ and ‘Communicating to Children’. These courses have been especially designed to meet the needs of this program.

Development of materials

Illustrated literature in Indian languages, audio and video programs for children and about children have been developed. Video programs for telecast on U.G.C. Country Wide Class Room have also been produced in collaboration with Educational Media Research Center's in University of Pune and Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. Programs for school children have been produced in collaboration with the State Institute of Educational Technology, Pune, and All India Radio, Pune.
The department has developed prototypes of illustrated printed material, both in the forms of books for young children and for teachers in Marathi. This is an important thrust area of the department due to dearth of material available in regional languages

Resource Center

A variety of material in the form of children's books, video programs, audio programs, art and craft activities, games and other recreational material for children are being collected at the resource center. Students use this regularly as it enables them to become sensitive and aware of material already available. The material produced by students each year adds to the existing body of the material.

Programs made in the Department

1. Touching the Horizon: film on the Outreach program of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, M.S. University of Baroda.
2. Shala Aapli Dari: A set of 3 Public Service Announcements to motivate parents to send children to schools. Made for the Pune Municipal Corporation.
(complete list of programs produced in the department : appendix a.)
3 Research Center
The department has been involved in several research projects with DECU -ISRO, in their talkback experiments. The department acted as a co-coordinator for research in Pune. We also did Content Analysis of Indian Newspapers and a survey on issues of Ethnicity and Media. This was a part of a larger project on Ethnicity and Media in S.E. Asia.

In the past few years we have identified several areas of research in the field of children and media. Some of these have been initiated in the form of master’s dissertation as pilot studies and we now plan to convert these into major and minor research projects.

Researches undertaken in the department:

1. Situational Analysis of Children and Television in Jhabua. Research done for Development and Educational Communication Unit, ISRO Ahmnedabad. 1998
2. Briefs for Children’s Programs. Development and Educational Communication Unit. ISRO. Ahmedabad. 1998
3. Reading Between the Lines. Content Analysis of Indian Newspapers. 1996.
(complete list of researches undertaken in the department : appendix b)

The department in 1998 organized a national seminar on Towards a Media Policy for Children. Eminent speakers like, Dr. Binod Agarwal, Dr. Mira Aghi, Dr. Manmohan Chaudhary, Mr. Ram Mohan, Mr. Anant Pai, Dr. Sugato Mitra, Mr. S.R. Joshi, Smt. Surekha Panandikar and others participated in the 3-day seminar. A brief outline of the areas of concern and recommendation was drawn out. The seminar was held in collaboration with UNICEF (Mumbai). Proposed Research Projects

Media Utilization by Children

This project aims at collecting data on the media habits and media utilization at a national level. We plan to collaborate with various other university departments in order to collect data. 3 Impact of gender stereotyping on adolescent children: This project is aimed at analyzing media images vide popular cinema and television serials and assessing the extent of gender identification and hence the possibility of learning gender roles through media. Preliminary research with 14-16 year olds has yielded interesting results in terms of appropriate and non-
Appropriate gender linked behaviors as perceived by the children

Children’s Literature

There is very little research in this area with regard to Indian children. Researches would focus on children’s preferences, reading habits, and on children’s understanding of realism, value of realism in children’s literature, images and messages conveyed through children’s literature, which includes magazines, newspapers and books? Media and the handicapped child: We have initiated some research in this area in terms of theater and creative activities, puppetry and their impact on self esteem of mentally retarded children. We plan to expand on including different media, art and how they can be used in developing programs for handicapped children.

PAST AND THE FUTURE

In the initial five years the department received substantial grant from UNICEF which enabled it to grow and find its’ feet. The grant enabled training for staff, faculty to teach and also VHS shooting and editing equipment. A book grant from the British Council helped build a departmental library. Through it’s own efforts the department also built a sound proof studio. A grant from the UGC in the 8th & 9th Plan further helped with getting beta and digital camera and editing facility. The course is also recognized by UGC and has now has permanent faculty and technical staff. All this has made the department fairly self sufficient for training and undertaking projects.
The department is fairly young. However we would like to extend our present scope of activities. Given below are some of the things that we would like to do in the future. Since this is the only program that trains students to cater to the media needs of children and young people, we hope to be able to specialize in the different media, so as to enable students to get more experience in one media of their interest.

We hope to be able to set up a resource center of books, videotapes, and films for children and act like a clearinghouse for the materials.

Develop a research center specializing in conducting research relevant to the Indian media situation and children. Some researches have already been initiated in the area of Media Education for children, Impact of media images on children and adolescents, research on attention and comprehension of television images on young children, Media utilization by children, and so on. The department is looking for agencies to collaborate with, for conducting cross-cultural research and also for funding research in India.

Another area of focus is developing media material for all media, which are relevant for Indian children, and testing existing materials for their impact and effectiveness.

Our Alumni

The students after graduating from the department have been working in a variety of media and children related agencies:

	Production houses like Zee, Star, and ETV and when given a chance have produced children’s programs.
	Newspapers/ Magazines for children
	Websites for children
	As special teachers for drama, creative writing, media education in schools.
	As puppeteers doing their own shows.
	As recreation center workers.
	Further studies in India and abroad.

Staff

Smt Radha Misra	Prof. & HOD M.Sc.(Child Devt.) MS (Broadcasting)
Smt Madhavi R.K.	Lecturer Ph.D.(Mass Communication)


	DEARTMENTS

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