Media and Minorities : Media Representation of Dalits in Tamil Nadu

The Dalits face exclusion in terms of social, economical and cultural perspectives. The collected literature confirmed the discrimination of the Dalits in each and every sphere of the social life.The focal objective of the study was to explore the coverage of the participation of the Dalits in politics in the southern districts of Tamil Nadu. The aims of the study were to examine the coverage of the Dalits political participation by the Tamil Press, to explore the perception of the Dalit scholars and journalists regarding the coverage of the Dalit issues in Tamil newspapers and to analyze the perceptions of the Dalit politicians, newspaper reporters and editors about the Tamil Press coverage of Dalits political participation.The findings suggest that the reasons for this kind of coverage of Dalits are due to the absence of the Dalits in the newsrooms and at the gatekeeping process, the ownership pattern of Tamil dailies, Dalit issues not considered as news value and the commercial mindset of the Tamil dailies. The data reveals the presence of subtle casteism in the media. It can be called as news casteism.