Indian Institute of Mass Communication: The Medium is the Message

THE INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MASS COMMUNICATION (IIMC) has retained the status of a leader among Indian media training in­stitutions. It is evident not only from the tough competition among students to seek admission in the institution every year but also from the record campus placements during the Covid-19 pan­demic. The main reason why students trust the institution is its industry-ori­ented curriculum, practical training and the international exposure that it offers through workshops and seminars.

Today, IIMC offers eight postgradu­ate diploma courses in English, Hindi, Odia, Malayalam, Marathi, Urdu, Radio and Television Journalism, and Adver­tisement and Public Relations. This year, a new postgraduate diploma on Digital Journalism has been introduced on three campuses—New Delhi, Aizawl and Jammu. Also, the Hindi Journalism course has been extended to the Jammu and Amravati campuses. Hence, there are 103 more seats in IIMC from this year.

Though English Journalism has been the flagship programme of the institution, offered in all six campuses located in New Delhi, Dhenkanal, Kot­tayam, Jammu, Aizawl and Amravati, the Digital Journalism course has been introduced keeping in view the high de­mand for trained professionals by the rapidly growing digital media.
Over the years, IIMC has created a niche in churning out high-quality professionals. Most of the profession­als working in leadership roles in lead­ing newsrooms as well as in advertising and public relations agencies in India and abroad are IIMCians. Even the in­ternational media houses have a good number of IIMCians. The achieve­ments of the IIMC alumni add to the institution's glory.

IIMC's faculty members have exten­sive experience in mainstream media. The institute allows students to have regular interactions with newsroom heads of different media houses. The institute aims to create a dynamic learning and teaching environment that nurtures new ideas, creativity, re­search and scholarship, and develops future leaders and innovators in me­dia and mass communication. These goals are achieved by involving indus­try leaders in training and providing out-of-classroom perspectives to the students on relevant issues. The "Fri­day Dialogue", which started in 2020, has emerged as a prominent platform for students to interact with achievers from different walks of life.

Communication research is an­other important dimension of IIMC. It aims to bridge the gap between the theoretical and professional issues in media and communication. More than 200 research and evaluation studies have been undertaken on various themes related to broadcast­ing and press policies, public health and behaviour and social change, multimedia campaigns, film censor­ship, etc. These initiatives are helpful in creating a knowledge-based society.

IIMC has also been producing quality content for students and media scholars. Sanchar Madhyam (Hindi) and Communicator (English) are two UGC-CARE-listed research journals of IIMC. In 2021, we started two other publications—Rajbha­shaVimarsh and Sanchar Srijan. The IIMC library, named after Pandit Jugal Kishore Shukla, the legendary editor of the first Hindi newspaper, Udant Martand, has a collection of rare pub­lications in the media. IIMC also has a community radio station known as 'Apna Radio' since 2005. Soon, all re­gional campuses will have their own radio stations.

Established in 1965, IIMC is also a training centre for Indian Information Service (IIS) officers. It offers short-term courses for the defence forces. A number of specialised short courses of one week to three months' duration are run by the institute to meet the training needs of communication pro­fessionals working in various media/publicity outfits of the Central/state governments and public sector un­dertakings. Also, IIMC runs a course in Development Journalism, which is joined by students from across the world. It is also an internationally recognised training institute for mid-level working journalists from Afro-Asian countries since 1969.

The institute makes a concerted effort to constantly innovate its pro­grammes in order to meet the chal­lenges of the industry. The syllabus is reviewed every year to make suitable modifications so that the courses are relevant to the needs of the industry.