Adivasi Media in India: Relevance in Representing Marginalized Voices

Increasingly scholars are emphasizing the importance of community driven media such as indigenous media for foregrounding marginalized voices. However, not all the indigenous media across the globe receive adequate attention in discursive spaces such as Adivasi (indigenous) media in India. Consequently, little is known about these media, their characteristics and relevance, and such gaps essentially call for scholarly inquiry into the domain of Adivasi media. Embracing qualitative approaches, this paper describes the presence and roles of Adivasi media in the contemporary mediascape and presents five brief illustrations. It argues that by negotiating with limited resources and structural access, locally situated Adivasi media and their unique characteristics, such as cultural appropriateness and trustworthiness, are instrumental in overcoming communicative barriers as well as in creating discursive possibilities in regional as well as international platforms.