About the authors
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Dr Chindu Sreedharan is Principal Lecturer in the School of Journalism, English and Communication at Bournemouth University. A former journalist who has reported extensively on the separatist violence in Jammu and Kashmir and the Maoist People’s War guerrilla movement in central India, Dr Sreedharan has a particular interest in journalistic storytelling as a means to improve human rights situations and empower marginalised groups. Previously, as principal investigator for Connect India, BU’s global engagement hub for the Indian sub-continent, he was instrumental in initiating several research and journalism projects in India and Nepal. He headed Project India, a journalism initiative that provided an alternative news coverage of the 2014 Indian elections. His publications include Global talent in India: Challenges and opportunities for skills development in higher education (with Dr Dean Hristov and Dr Sonal Minocha, 2017), Epic Retold (Harper Collins India, 2015), and India Election 2014: First Reflections (edited with Dr Einar Thorsen, 2014). He edits NewsTracker (http://newstracker.maar.in), a media-watch website that analyses how sexual violence is reported in India. He can be reached on csreedharan@bournemouth.ac.uk
Dr Einar Thorsen is Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication, and Head of Research for the School of Journalism, English and Communication at Bournemouth University. His research covers online journalism, citizens’ voices, and news reporting of crisis and political change—inextricably linked with protecting freedom of speech, human rights, and civil liberties—especially for journalists, vulnerable people, marginalised groups, and in contexts or countries where such liberties are being curtailed. Dr Thorsen has co-edited several books, including: Media, Margins and Civic Agency and Media, Margins and Popular Culture (with Jackson, Savigny and Alexander, 2015), India Election: 2014 First Reflections (with Sreedharan, 2015) and two volumes of Citizen Journalism: Global Perspectives (with Stuart Allan, Volume 1: 2009, Volume 2: 2014). He can be reached on ethorsen@bournemouth.ac.ukDr Sreedharan and Dr Thorsen currently co-direct Media Action Against Rape (MAAR), a GCRF-funded research and capacity building project led by Bournemouth University and UNESCO in New Delhi.