Kanchan K. Malik, India

Kanchan, a researcher and learner, as she introduces herself, has worked for a lifetime in support of securing women’s voices in community radio in India and South Asia

Women on the Global Community Airwaves

Women on the global community airwaves is a podcast series bringing you stories told by women around the world working to strengthen women’s voices on airwaves within their own community media. The stories are brought to you by me, Birgitte Jallov, who have worked with these issues for a lifetime. The women tell about why it is so important that women get a voice and what it means for the producers, the listeners and the community contributing. Much more here →

Kachan K. Malik (PhD) is a university professor at the University of Hyderabad and is a Faculty Fellow with the ‘UNESCO Chair on Community Media’, there, where she unfolds her work in support of community media in India and in South Asia.

Kanchan tells that she is a researcher, learning from the powerful people building community media where her journeys take her.

Kanchan has been with the Department of Communication, UoH, since 2007, where she also served as Head from 2017-20. She has been a Faculty Fellow with the ‘UNESCO Chair on Community Media’ since 2011, an Editor of the e-newsletter – ‘CR News’ and the Vice-Chair for the Ethics Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). With a dual Master’s in Economics and Mass Communication, Kanchan worked as a journalist with ‘The Economic Times’, New Delhi, before settling for a career in academics.

For over two and a half decades, Kanchan K. Malik’s academic interests and endeavours have been in Community and Alternative Media; Women and Community Media; Journalism Studies; and Media Ethics. She has worked with national and international research projects and published scholarly papers and chapters on media interventions by non-governmental organisations for empowerment at the grassroots level. Her research has also contributed to policy advocacy efforts for community radio in India.

Research-based publications, co-authored with Professor Vinod Pavarala

‘Other Voices: The Struggle for Community Radio in India’ (Sage: 2007)

‘Community Radio in South Asia: Reclaiming the Airwaves’ (Routledge: 2020).

 ‘Strengthening Gender Sensitive Practices and Programming in Community Radio’. A Manual (UNESCO, 2021)

Kanchan training students of the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (SIMC), Pune, Maharashtra in Western India (Facebook, private photo)
Kanchan working with community radio broadcasters in India (Private photo)