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This case study of a community newspaper, Namaskar, and its impact in 'underdeveloped' areas of coastal Odisha in India, discusses the potential of alternative media for social change. It scrutinises and analyses the participatory advocacy activities of Namaskar. Studying participatory journalism favours a more dialogical and reflexive approach, which also draws on ideas of 'critical' and 'radical' media, while also calling attention to the significance of content in bringing about social change. Building on observations and testimonies from the field, collected through multiple qualitative methods for data collection, the study infers that Namaskar ensures significant participation in its advocacy practices, leading to observable changes in and around its catchment area. However, basic gatekeeping and editing work to make news copy print-ready also restrain the extent of 'absolute participation'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dharamshala is home to the Tibetan Government-in-Exile. Its small-town journalism landscape is unique due to specific forms of community journalism practice adopted by Indian and Tibetan journalists. The Tibetan press there faces a paradox: simultaneously "local and community specific" for Tibetans-in-exile, "refugee voices" for the international community, and "foreign journalism" for Indians. This framing study identified interpretive packages in news coverage of conflict and integration between Dharamshala communities, by examining stories from community news outlets. Indian Hindi journalists enact a "community booster" role by actively framing issues of conflict in favor of the community, while Tibetan journalists' approach was comparatively more balanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]