Professor Chindu Sreedharan
- Professor of Journalism and Innovation
- Weymouth House W336, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB
- Keywords:
- Citizen journalism
- Crisis journalism
- Journalism
Biography
Chindu Sreedharan is Professor of Journalism at Bournemouth University. His research focuses on ‘abnormal journalisms’—reportage that extends the boundaries of conventional newswork, from crisis and post-disaster situations, news on social media, as well as new forms of nonfictional narratives.
Before moving into academics, Chindu worked as a journalist, combining reportorial and newsdesk experiences in New Delhi, Mumbai, and New York. Till 2003, he was Associate Editor for Rediff.com and India Abroad (a New York-based weekly newspaper), reporting and editing multi-chapter long narratives and political interviews.
Chindu specialised in crisis news, heading the coverage of, among others, the Kashmir conflict, the India-Pakistan Kargil war, and the Maoist insurgency in central India. He holds a PhD in journalism. His doctoral thesis was a longitudinal analysis of the news media coverage of the Kashmir conflict, and was among the first empirical investigation into this topic.
From 2015 to 2018, Chindu worked with the pro-vice-chancellor (global engagement) to contribute to BU’s international strategy... He was Principal Investigator of Connect India, one of the three ‘global hubs’ designed to embed internationalisation at BU, which brought together a cross-faculty team of academics to engender research, practice and educational collaborations with HE institutions, businesses, and NGOs in the Indian subcontinent. Prior to that, he was the programme leader of the MA Media and Communication (2015-17) and MA International Journalism (2010-12).
Chindu teaches on the master’s and undergraduate levels and supervises PhDs. He invites applications from doctoral students interested in: a) journalism and crisis situations (disasters, terrorism, internal conflicts, war), and b) digital narratives and storytelling (longform journalism, multimodality, transmedia—both nonfiction and fiction). Please email your proposals to csreedharan@bournemouth.ac.uk
moreResearch
Chindu currently leads or co-leads three research and capacity building projects that look into the role of news media in situations of deviance: Tie u Orja, Media Action Against Rape, and Aftershock Nepal.
Tie u Orja, which in Krio symbolises fortifying oneself to face a difficult time, looks to strengthen disaster-preparedness among crisis communicators in Sierra Leone. Founded on a large-scale national survey and structured interviews with journalists and disaster communicators, the study interlaces three strands of activities to support journalists, public communicators, and media educators in their communicative responses to disasters.
MAAR is a Global Challenges Research Fund initiative in partnership with UNESCO New Delhi to explore news media solutions to combat sexual violence in India. The project is currently in its final phase, having completed a multilingual, comparative content analysis on the news reporting of rape in India across six Indian languages; and recording interviews with 257 journalists working across 13 Indian languages. It has also launched NewsTracker, a single-issue web site with the tagline 'journalism on the journalism of rape'; NewsTracker Data, a searchable online database of sexual violence reportage in the Indian media; and Note This, a newsletter aimed at journalists, researchers and other stakeholders...
The third project, Aftershock Nepal is in partnership with UNESCO Kathmandu. In the wake of the 2015 Nepal earthquake, the project aims to understand the challenges journalists face in post-disaster societies, and explore ways to build editorial resilience. It drew from first-hand post-disaster reporting from Nepal, which can be accessed on this single-issue site. You can also download Voices from Nepal: Lessons in Post-Disaster Journalism.
Other research projects (with practice components) that Chindu has headed include Project India, TIWIS, and Epic Retold (an experiment into the genre of Twitterfiction).
moreFavourites
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E., Rani, P. and T K, K., 2022. Pandemic News Patterns in Kerala: The First Six Months. Manipal: Manipal Institute of Communication and the Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice.
- Sreedharan, C. and Thorsen, E., 2021. Sexual violence and the news media: Issues, challenges, and guidelines for journalists in India. New Delhi: UNESCO.
- Sreedharan, C., 2021. India: A spectacle of mismanagement. Political Communication and COVID-19: Governance and Rhetoric in Times of Crisis. 123-131.
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E. and Singh, A., 2020. Notes for the media: Ordinary Indians, on the reporting of sexual violence. CESJ.
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E. and Singh, A., 2020. Hold Your Story: Reflections on the news of sexual violence in India. CESJ.
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E., Upreti, L. and Sharma, S., 2020. Impact of COVID-19 on journalism in Nepal. Tripureshwor, Kathmandu: Nepal Press Institute.
- Sreedharan, C. and Thorsen, E., 2020. Reporting from the 'inner circle': Afno Manche and commitment to community in post-earthquake Nepal. Media, Journalism and Disaster Communities. 35-52.
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E. and Gouthi, A., 2020. Time's up. Or is it? Journalists’ Perceptions of Sexual Violence and Newsroom Changes after #MeTooIndia. Journalism Practice, 14 (2), 132-149.
- Sreedharan, C., 2019. Autobiography of a villain. London: IPN.
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E. and Sharma, N., 2019. Disaster Journalism: Building Media Resilience in Nepal. Kathmandu: UNESCO Kathmandu.
- Sreedharan, C., 2019. No one was roasting reindeer in Norway: notes from a happy nation. Amazon. Kindle Unlimited. Available from: https://tinyurl.com/yyywt998.
- Thorsen, E. and Sreedharan, C., 2019. #EndMaleGuardianship: Women’s rights, social media and the Arab public sphere. New Media and Society, 21 (5), 1121-1140.
- Sreedharan, C. and Thorsen, E., 2018. Voices from Nepal: Lessons in Post-Disaster Journalism. Bournemouth University: Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture and Community. Available from: http://aftershocknepal.com/.
- Minocha, S., Hristov, D. and Sreedharan, C., 2018. Global talent in India: Challenges and opportunities for skills development in higher education. Poole: Global Engagement Hub, Bournemouth University.
- Sreedharan, C., 2016. The Wars of Thomas Hardy. The Hindu. Available from: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-wars-of-thomas-hardy/article8718558.ece.
- Allan, S. and Sreedharan, C., 2016. Visualising war: Photojournalism under fire. Routlege Handbook of Media, Conflict and Security. 93-105.
- Sreedharan, C., 2016. An Indian's Journey Into The English Psyche. Huffington Post India. Available from: http://www.huffingtonpost.in/dr-chindu-sreedharan/an-indians-feet-first-journey-into-the-english-psyche-part-1/.
- Thorsen, E. and Sreedharan, C., 2015. India Election 2014: First Reflection. Poole: Centre for the Study of Journalism, Culture & Community.
- Sreedharan, C., 2014. Epic Retold. Harper Collins India.
- Thorsen, E., Sreedharan, C. and Allan, S., 2013. WikiLeaks and Whistleblowing: The Framing of Bradley Manning. In: Brevini, B., Hintz, A. and McCurdy, P., eds. eyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Sreedharan, C., 2013. Supervision in the ‘Hackademy’: Reflections on the research journey of journalism practitioners. Journalism Education.
- Sreedharan, C., Thorsen, E. and Allan, S., 2012. WikiLeaks and the changing forms of information politics in the ‘network society’. In: Downey, E. and Jones, M.A., eds. Public Service, and Web 2.0 Technologies: Future Trends in Social Media. IGI Global.
