Dr. Nookaraju Bedukurthi

Biography

Dr.Nookaraju Bedukurthi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Convergent Journalism at Central University of Kashmir (CUK) where he has been a full-time faculty member since 2016. He did his masters and PhD from Central University of Hyderabad (CUH). He was a guest faculty at the CUH before he was employed at CUK. Prior to his doctoral study he worked as a full-time faculty at Loyola Academy, in the Department of Mass Communication, Secundrabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. While he was teaching at Loyola Academy in the year 2010, he was awarded with UGC-JRF. Nookaraju worked as a Network Coordinator for a European Commission funded project on Human Trafficking between 2007-2008. He worked as a Research Associate at SAMATA, an NGO working for the Tribal Rights and Education in North Coastal Andhra Pradesh in 2004 and 2007. He had small stint with The Hindu and Deccan Chronicle during his masters programme. His research paper won the Chris Bell Memorial Award of Society of Disability Studies (SDS) for the year 2014, presented at its 27th Annual Conference held at Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He was also the winner of Indian Council for Social Science Research’s (ICSSR) International Travel Grant for the year 2014. This grant was availed to visit a number of Universities in the USA and with which he got an opportunity to gain a closer understanding of existing/offering Disability and Media courses in specific and Communication and Media courses in general. His media and disability research has been published in Routledge Companion to Disability and Media (expected to be out in 2017),Journal of Creative Communication (2016), The Hindu (2013), Cafédissensus (2013 & 2016), Teacher Plus (2013). Nookaraju is a native of East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, India, and received his undergraduate degree in English Literature from PR Government College, Andhra University. Dr.Bendukurthi currently maintains a facebook page titled “Disability and Media: Representation Matters”, it intends to share news articles, links, memes and blogs on matters of disability found on the intertubes. This is an open group to share, contribute and exchange dialogue on media matters in connection with disability construction/representation. He has been researching media images of disability since 2002. He did a master’s thesis at the CUH on the coverage of Blind persons in Eenadu- the Telugu daily. His Ph.D. dissertation investigated how both regional (Telugu) and national (English) print media construct the issues of People with Disabilities (PWDs) also probed on how media perceives the utilisation of abilities of PWDS in media production and vice versa.

Research Interest

Following are the courses that he is good at teaching -Sociology of Communication, Political Communication, Disability & Mass Media, Media and Gender, Political economy of Media, Strategic Communication apart from the conventional media courses: Development Communication, Media Theory, Media and Culture, Media Research, Advertising, Media and Aesthetics, Media and Ethics and History of Media, Community Media, Media and Law, Globalisation and Communication/Media.