Mainstream Indian Media and Naga Audience: Representation and Perception

This article is about the politics of television audiences. It is about Naganess as well. How do identities and subjecthoods such as Naga and Television get negotiated with regard to representation? The Indo-Naga political issue forms the wider backdrop to this study and this is explained in the article. This issue has intensified an awareness of deep differences and has emphasised the tensions between the local and national identities. The article through a focus group discussion with eleven groups in different parts of the Indian state of Nagaland sheds light on media representation as perceived by the Naga youth. Their responses challenge established national and cultural boundaries as well as identities. As the Indian state aims towards cultural homogenisation, the youth resist and negotiate such tendencies and recreate their own culture deftly nestled between tradition and modernity, centre and periphery.