Sachin Patil

Prof. Ravikant Kisana

CULS101 - Curation Diary

24th October, 2021

1st week - At the starting of the course we discussed the very outline of the course and how there

are multiple problems just ignored by us faced by many people currently living in India. Many

topics like poverty, daily income, student problems, etc. We also discussed a little in detail about

the Safaikaramchari and the Riots which went down in Seelampur. We talked about how there’s a

violation of article 42 which says all the workers must wear safety equipment and gloves but they

are provided with neither. The session was roughly around how there are privileges to the people

with power.

2nd week - We basically covered a lot of topics in the second week, topics like how school and

prison and undergoing the same concept of obidience and servility, Slums and their habitants,

Islamophobic, Kasmir half widows, Punjab killings in 1998, Inter country conflicts for all

aspects. We also ended up talking about Internal conflicts in India, border and frontier and how

people try to come up with many laws to keep cultural peace and end up having no one true law.

We also talked about how Bhutan is trying to operate their country like India and how Sri Lankan

Tamils face problems.

3rd week - We did speak on a lot of topics like issues of the public hospitals, cruising spots and

caste discrimination and seperations and issues faced by the domestic workers. I would like to

spotlight the topic of cruising spots in Mumbai a little extra here. As seen in a lot cases there’s a

lot of discrimination faced by the men and women standing at the crusing spots. There’s

discirmation faced on the basis of colour and standards or even clothes sometimes. There are
literally two different spots in the same place. Looking at the scene just makes me sad. People of

the same interests cannot accept each other as human beings.

4th and 5th week - This is the week where we started the topics of framing and priming and

Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding. Encoding and decoding refers to the process of

understanding the exact message an individual was trying to convey. We had also discussed a

little about Derrida on deconstruction which states that deconstruction is not an analysis in the

traditional sense. This is because the possibility of analysis is predicated on the possibility of

breaking up the text being analysed into elemental component parts. We also had discussed a

little how the media plays with the truth and shows half facts. Thinking more upon it, showing

half facts is kind of telling a lie.

6th week - In the 6th week we had discussed how casteism is shown in almost every section of

the society even when we are currently living in the 21st century. We discussed how the country

Bangladesh had fought to break away from the country Pakistan. This created an outrage. There

were some really shameful acts from Pakistan’s side. There were mass rapes and sexual

harassments and it was really sad when the first thing Bangladesh had to do after they getting

Independence is they had to set abortion camps and during this time India was the one who lent

an helping hand to Bangladesh. But within 15-20 years Bangladesh broke away from India and

were like allies with Pakistan.

7th week - This week is where we discussed Agenda, setting, priming and framing. The ability of

the media to persuade or convince the public of the priority put on public issues is referred to as

agenda-setting. The study of agenda-setting examines how the media attempts to convince

viewers and establishes a hierarchy of information predominance. Despite the fact that two
aspects overlap in real communication practises, priming is typically claimed to focus on what

facts are offered and framing on how they are conveyed. While some define framing as the "ifs

and buts" of communication, others argue that framing is a second-order priming effect, and yet

others argue that the theories of priming and framing should be kept separate because they have

different and varied assumptions.

8th week - We had discussed the Propaganda Model, Cultural Policy and Intersectionality.

Promoting a product or a concept that may or may not be real is referred to as propaganda.

Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky established the propaganda model as a conceptual model

for the economic system. This model explains how propaganda and structural biases are present

in mass media corporations. The concept attempts to explain how people are controlled and how

permission for economic, social, and political policies, both domestic and international, is

generated alongside public opinion as a result of propaganda.

We used the example of a journalism company to show how India’s media is largely influenced

by Propaganda in terms of what the majority of the population thinks of the truth.

Conclusion - Overall talking about the course, it was a very knowledgeable and eye opening

course. It showed me the other side of the coin and how we Indians struggle and go through so

much just because of a few wrong rules and people being selfish. The condition of our country is

bad but there is hope. Not saying that making everything all shiny and gold is going to be easy

but keeping hope is always a start to a better future. Therefore, I would really like to thank sir

and others who designed this course.