Studies of forms of media have focused on either political or cultural histories of media. Political histories study media growth and literacy, and the emergence of liberal democratic institutions in Western and postcolonial societies. Cultural histories study the multiple origins of media technologies, seek lost or marginalised cultural objects, and examine how artefacts are connected to earlier modes of production and consumption.

What is lost in both is the idea that media and technologies have an independent existence, with their own lives, histories, and afterlives. Inhabiting Technologies/Modernities: Media and Cultural Practices in South Asia (Orient BlackSwan, 2025) fills this gap, showing how media and technologies create the human condition even as they are created by it. The authors highlight this through everyday artefacts like the book, newspaper, radio, photograph, film, television and activism on digital media.

P. Thirumal is Professor of Communication Studies at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, Sarojini Naidu School of Arts and Communication, University of Hyderabad.

Carmel Christy K. J. is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Syracuse University and is affiliated with the South Asian Studies program.

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