Development - induced displacement and the print media in Karnataka

Displacement is not mere physical transfer to a new place but a long process affecting the lives of thousands of people. For those who are attached to the land it is a traumatic experience. Karnataka is one of the states where lakhs of people have been displaced by development projects. The state has the third highest number of persons displaced by dams after Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Although media in Karnataka have been reporting displacement issues for the last three decades there have hardly been any content analyses of news related to displacement. This study looks at coverage of displacement as the main focus of investigation. The study examines the coverage and framing of news related development induced displacement in daily newspapers published in Karnataka. The study shows that Environmental stories in newspapers constituted only a small percent of (0.52) of all news reported. As low as 0.9 percent of the total news in the newspapers was about issues of displacement. Official bias permeates most stories of displacement in newspapers and that explains why a majority of the displaced persons do not see the coverage of issues favourable to them