Sashi Kumar-Frontline

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Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union, speaks at the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai on December 3.-KARIM SAHIB/AFP

Net worth

Cyberspace and social media, which should be the equivalent of the public square where people meet and exchange views, are instead becoming the more p

A SCENE FROM 'SKYFALL', which has Daniel Craig as James Bond and Judi Dench as the MI6 head, M.-FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/AP/SONY PICTURES

I spy

Much as one has been smitten by the lethal charm of Sean Connery as the early Bond, this new one personified by Daniel Craig seems far more the kind o

The TV channels draw their sustenance from TRPs that viewership measurement agencies bestow on them.-M. VEDHAN

Stings, ratings & shootings

The single most important arbiter of the television industrys fortunes, the ratings system, is here to stay. It has the media by the throat and contro

ANTENNAS of the government-run Arasu Cable TV Corporation in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu.-M. SRINATH

Digital capitalism

If the television viewer is at the mercy of the service provider, the state too seems to be taking its digital media policy cues from the very industr

The ism in journalism

The potential and promise of socialism against the neoliberal order needs an agency which can evoke the alternative in freshly minted terms that captu

A Muslim-American looks to hand out pamphlets challenging the 'Support Israel, Defeat Jihad' advertisement (background) which was displayed on the walls of the Times Square subway station in New York on September 24.-BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS

Clash of exceptionalisms

The Western media and the Islamists seem to hold their credo and creed dearer than the human lives lost over Innocence of Muslims.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on August 19. Select newspapers which have made roaring headlines from the cables he provided them seem to have forsaken him.-SANG TAN/AP

Manufacturing dissent

The touchiness in the U.S. administration and press about media freedoms abroad appears a bit far-fetched and holier-than-thou.

Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman of the Press Council of India. He says he stands for regulation, not control.-SUSHANTHA PATRONOBISH

Just let the press be

Justice Markandey Katju's prescription for a regulated media regime is a misplaced step that can actually de-democratise the fourth estate.

Stills from 'Battleship Potemkin'.-

Lasting images

The unique brand of montage that Sergei Eisenstein developed was an eclectic and organic tool to design a new cinematic ethos and aesthetic.

CNN brought the first Gulf War live to the drawing rooms the world over. The cable and satellite television revolution had begun.-GAMMA

In the melting pot

The information revolution, with the media as its shifting eye of the storm, is constantly redefining and reframing even the objective conditions in w

Restrained accounts

The Book I Won't Be Writing and Other Essays by H.Y. Sharada Prasad; Chronicle Books; pages 330; price Rs.425.