Communications, Media and the Imperial Experience ─ Britain and India in the Twentieth Century

Over the twentieth century, the British Raj successfully combined military force and coercion, with modern methods of persuasion, publicity and media manipulation - imperial public relations- in their strategies to engage with the increasingly challenging task of governing their Indian empire. The book focusses on the media environment of empire as a conceptual tool to investigate its political culture and role in shaping the imperial experience. The British national press, Reuters, the BBC, American newspapers and international news agencies like the Associated Press and the United Press, as well as the Indian media, had a seminal role to play in this process. The interaction of imperial and media cultures is undertaken through in depth case studies utilizing hitherto unseen or under-utilised primary sources examining, for instance, the grand pageant of the Coronation Durbar 1911, Gandhian strategies of mass civil disobedience during the 1930s, the new technological revolution of broadcasting and the birth of All India Radio, as well as the endgame of empire and decolonization in 1947.

Chandrika Kaul is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Her research interests include the British media and empire, 1850-1950, modern Indian history and politics, globalization, and, communications in world history. She is author of the first detailed monograph examining British press coverage of India titled Reporting the Raj, the British Press and India (2003). She has also edited Media and the British Empire (2006, 2013); Explorations in Modern Indian History and the Media (2009) and, co-edited International Communications and Global News networks: Historical Perspectives (2011).