Mass Media Preference and Consumption in Rural India: A Study on Bharat Nirman Campaign

This paper seeks to explore the media habits and preferences of rural audience in India. The study adopted purposive along with random sampling techniques to identify stakeholders in six states of the country who were targeted for the Bharat Nirman campaign conducted by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India. The results indicated that television is the best medium to target rural and semi-urban audiences for public service advertising. Doordarshan's regional channels remained one of the preferred communication medium for accessing information along with other regional channels. Newspapers and radio appeared to seriously lag behind as mass media vehicles of choice in comparison to television. The mobile telephone had made some inroads; however, it was hardly being used as a medium for accessing public service information.