The FOCUS section of the current issue of the South Asia Chronicle has
its origins in a panel on 'Print Journalism in Modern South Asia' organised
by myself and Prof. Dr. Michael Mann at the European Association of
South Asian Studies Conference held in Warsaw in 2016. The idea behind
that panel was to revisit the history of print journalism in the Indian
subcontinent in order to expand its thematic repertoire by highlighting
less explored topics or rethinking familiar ones from new angles. We
were particularly interested to discuss issues pertaining to the historical
development of different genres of journalism that have been relevant
in the Indian context, such as advocacy, developmental or market jour-
nalism, the position of women reporters and the role of print media in
empowering women as well as the manner in which science and tech-
nology have intersected with journalistic practice and processes of print
media production and distribution more generally. By bringing together
scholars and practitioners of journalism, we hoped to bridge the gap
between the research and practice of journalism and add inter-
disciplinary flavour to a field of inquiry that often tends to examine
historical and contemporary developments separately. One consequence
of this state of affairs has been a notable lack of dialogue between
historical studies of journalism and research that approaches this topic
from the perspective of disciplines like media and communication
studies. Furthermore, the usual compartmentalisation of press history
into different 'phases'—colonial, post-independence, post-liberali-
sation—has also promoted the notion that these were distinct periods
best examined separately, rather than along a continuum that could
reveal instructive (dis)continuities between them. Our hope as panel
conveners was that this exercise in bridging professional and disciplinary.