Mohan J. Dutta is a media expert, author and academic. He is the Dean's Chair Professor of Communication and Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation (CARE) at
Massey University
Massey University () is a Public university, public research university in New Zealand that provides internal and distance education. The university has campuses in Auckland, Palmerston North, and Wellington. Data from Universities New Zealand ...
in New Zealand.
Dutta is most known for developing the Culture-Centered approach, addressing unequal
health policies through
culturally-based participatory strategies of
radical democracy
Radical democracy is a type of democracy that advocates the radical extension of equality and liberty. Radical democracy is concerned with a radical extension of equality and freedom, following the idea that democracy is an unfinished, inclusive, ...
. The culture-centered approach offers a framework fo
organizing health as social justiceco-creating voice infrastructuresfor transformative social change in partnership with communities at the global margins. His research explores community-led advocacy for
universal health, activism around structural transformation,
poverty's impact on health,
global health
Global health is the health of populations in a worldwide context; it has been defined as "the area of study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving equity in health for all people worldwide". Problems th ...
policies' political economy, cultural tropes in
neo-colonial health projects, and participatory culture-centered processes for global
social change
Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformat ...
. He has authored over 250 journal articles and book chapters, and 10+ books including ''Communicating Health'', ''Communicating Social Change'', ''Voices of Resistance'', and ''Neoliberal Health Organizing'', in addition to serving as the co-editor of ''Emerging Perspectives in Health Communication'', ''Reducing Health Disparities: Communication Interventions'', and ''Migrants and the COVID-19 Pandemic''. His contributions towards research and academia have earned him many awards including the
Charles Redding Award for Excellence in Teaching,
Gerald M Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship, Lewis Donohew Outstanding Scholar in Health Communication Award,
Applied/Public Policy Communication Researcher Award,
Charles H. Woolbert Award,
and Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award.
Dutta is a Distinguished Scholar of the
National Communication Association
The National Communication Association (NCA) of the United States is a not-for-profit association of academics in the field of communication.
Organization
NCA is governed by the Legislative Assembly, which meets during the NCA Annual Conventi ...
, Fellow of the
International Communication Association
The International Communication Association (ICA) is an academic association for scholars interested in the study, teaching and application of all aspects of human and mediated communication.
ICA communicates within the association and with oth ...
and has held editorial roles such as Editor for the ''
Journal of Applied Communication Research'', and Senior Editor at ''
Health Communication
Health communication is the study and application of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctors and patients. The purpose of disseminating health information is to inf ...
''. He acts as a Series Editor for the ''Critical Cultural Studies in Global Health Communication'' book series at
Routledge Press, and serves as a Specialty Chief Editor for ''Frontiers in Communication''.
Education
Dutta earned his bachelor's degree in Agricultural Engineering from the
Indian Institute of Technology
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are a network of engineering and technology institutions in India. Established in 1950, they are under the purview of the Ministry of Education of the Indian Government and are governed by the Instit ...
,
Kharagpur
Kharagpur () is a semi- planned urban agglomeration and a major industrial city in the Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Kharagpur subdivision and the largest city of the district. It is located 1 ...
in 1995.
At IIT, he was the editor of the campus magazine ''Alankar'' in his fourth (senior) year and received the institute's Order of Merit in Literary Activities and Dramatics. He won the Alumni Cup, given to the best allrounder, in his second and third years, over twenty Institute medals in Debate and Dramatics, and the Medury Bhanumurthy Memorial Prize awarded to a graduating student adjudged to be the best in extra-curricular activities. He later pursued a master's degree in communication from North Dakota State University and graduated with a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota.
Career
Dutta worked at the
School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota from 1998 to 2001. He held the position of assistant professor, followed by an appointment as associate professor, and later took the appointment of Professor in the Department of Communication at
Purdue University
Purdue University is a Public university#United States, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded ...
. Concurrently, he assumed the role of Associate Dean for Research & Graduate Education at the College of Liberal Arts, where he served from 2010 to 2012. He served as a Visiting associate professor in Communications and New Media at the
National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national university, national Public university, public research university in Singapore. It was officially established in 1980 by the merging of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University ...
, Professor between 2012 and 2018, and was titled as its Provost's Chair Professor in 2014. He accepted the position of Dean's Chair Professor in the School of Communication, Journalism, and Marketing at Massey University in 2018.
In 2012, he became the Head of the Department of Communications and New Media at the National University of Singapore, where he chaired the Communication Management Curriculum Revision Committee. As of 2012, he has also been serving as a Director of the Center for the Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation first at the National University of Singapore and then at Massey University.
Media
Dutta is the host of the International Communication Association podcast, ''Interventions from the Global South''. His white paper on the
Hindutva
Hindutva (; ) is a Far-right politics, far-right political ideology encompassing the cultural justification of Hindu nationalism and the belief in establishing Hindu hegemony within India. The political ideology was formulated by Vinayak Da ...
ideology became a subject of controversy that led to significant backlash, including hate comments and trolling from right-wing
Hindu nationalists. ''
The New Zealand Herald
''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand.
It has the largest newspaper circulation in New Zealand, ...
'' covered this, highlighting the abusive comments flooding his social media accounts. The Hindu Youth Council New Zealand criticized the white paper, claiming it included accusatory and unsubstantiated assertions against
Hindus and the Hindu community in Aotearoa. In response, the Aotearoa Alliance of Progressive Indians published an article dismissing the attempt to equate Hindutva and Hindu Nationalism with Hinduism and Hindus as a "nugatory exercise". The
Media Council in New Zealand upheld a complaint he raised about the right-wing platform The Indian News based on lack of accuracy, balance, and fairness. His research on Hindutva has been covered by
Radio New Zealand
Radio New Zealand (), commonly known as RNZ or Radio NZ, is a New Zealand public service broadcaster and Crown entity. Established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995, it operates news and current affairs station, RNZ National, and a classi ...
, ''
Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'', ''
South China Morning Post
The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remaine ...
'', and ''
The Wire
''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...
''.
His writings on the whiteness of communication studies has been a critical part of the #CommSoWhit
movement For his role in the movement that has brought about significant changes in how the discipline of Communication Studies is organized and in building spaces for the inclusion of scholars from diverse backgrounds, Dutta has been recognized with the National Communication Association Presidential Citation.
On his blog site, Dutta writes about the communicative practices of social change, the role of communication in challenging powerful structures, and strategies of sustenance when facing backlash from powerful structures. He has written over 700 blog entries on whiteness, racial capitalism, settler colonialism, Hindutva, far-right Zionism and interconnected systems of oppression, outlining strategies of resistance through communication. He has written over 75 opinion pieces on diverse platforms across the globe on the topics of power, control, and resistance. His most recent opinion pieces have explored the far-right disinformation infrastructure in New Zealand and its connections with the global rise of the far-right.
Dutta was featured in an article by ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' showcasing his study on the challenges faced by low-wage
migrant worker
A migrant worker is a person who Human migration, migrates within a home country or outside it to pursue work. Migrant workers usually do not have an intention to stay permanently in the country or region in which they work.
Migrant workers ...
s in Singapore. His research on the poor living conditions and food insecurity experienced by migrant workers in Singapore was covered in Time Magazine, National Public Radio, and South China Morning Post.
Research
Dutta has researched
poverty
Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...
,
health
Health has a variety of definitions, which have been used for different purposes over time. In general, it refers to physical and emotional well-being, especially that associated with normal functioning of the human body, absent of disease, p ...
,
development communication,
social justice
Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals' rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has of ...
,
labor rights
Labor rights or workers' rights are both legal rights and human rights relating to labor relations between workers and employers. These rights are codified in national and international labor and employment law. In general, the ...
,
democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
, and academic freedom in Asia, conducting studies in India, Singapore, Nepal, Bangladesh, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and China. His work also includes an examination of threats to academic freedom in
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...
regimes and democracies, as well as strategies for resisting the threats to
academic freedom
Academic freedom is the right of a teacher to instruct and the right of a student to learn in an academic setting unhampered by outside interference. It may also include the right of academics to engage in social and political criticism.
Academic ...
.
Works
Dutta has published books on the intersections of culture, communication, and social change. He presented a culture-centered communication approach, emphasizing contextual embedding and co-construction in health communication with cultural voices in his book ''Communicating Health: A Culture-centered Approach''. In the book, Dutta offers a theoretical framework for locating community agency as the basis for building theories of health and communication, and partnering with communities to draw on these theories and enact social change. Yogita Sharma in her review for the ''
Journal of Health Communication
The ''Journal of Health Communication'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering health communication.
Background
The Journal of Health Communication was established in 1996 and is published by Taylor & Francis. The editor-in-chi ...
'' stated that the book makes an important contribution by arguing for a reconsideration of the dominant health paradigm from the perspective of the
marginalized
Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...
. The book was awarded the Outstanding Book Award from the Health Communication division of the National Communication Association.
In 2011, Dutta published ''Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency'' which delved into communication's role in reshaping power structures amid contemporary
globalization politics. The book offers a culture-centered framework of social change, developing a methodology for building what he describes as voice infrastructures in communities, mobilized in resistance to settler colonialism, extractive racial capitalism, patriarchy, and imperialism. Dane Lane commented that the book is the most comprehensive manifestation of the author's theoretical model of social change.
The book forms the basis for his ongoing experimental collaborations with activists, shaping the activist-in-residence program housed at CARE.
Dutta's subsequent work, ''Neoliberal Health Organizing: Communication, Meaning, and Politics'' focused on communicative forms shaping
neoliberal
Neoliberalism is a political and economic ideology that advocates for free-market capitalism, which became dominant in policy-making from the late 20th century onward. The term has multiple, competing definitions, and is most often used pej ...
governance, relevant to critical communication. Alexander Sabine wrote in his review that "Despite the apparent synchronicity, I was still left wishing that I had been able to heed the warnings in this book a decade ago." In ''Imagining India in Discourse: Meaning, Power, Structure'', he explored the impact of
India's economic liberalization on discourses envisioning the country's future.
Dutta also co-edited the book ''Emerging Perspectives in Health Communication: Meaning, Culture, and Power'' which addressed praxis-driven research on interpretive, critical, and cultural approaches to health communication. Elaine Hsieh reviewed this work and regarded it as a "valuable addition to the current literature in health communication". He alongside Satveer Kaur-Gill, co-edited the book ''Migrants and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Communication, Inequality, and Transformation'' which investigated communication's role in addressing the
health crisis faced by migrants during the pandemic.
Health communication
Dutta has analyzed various strategies aimed at enhancing the effective application of communication within the domain of public health. In his analysis of the 1999 HealthStyles data, he explored consumer health, highlighting the significance of active channels for health-conscious individuals. His examination of three central theories in health communication campaigns aimed to propose new directions for theory, methodology, and application. Furthermore, he delved into the analysis of health communication in cultural settings and provided a conceptual framework for understanding the application of culture in health communication. The culture-centered approach offers a framework for understanding the interplays of erasure of voices of marginalized communities and health disparities. It then proposes community-led processes for building resources where communities can advocate for their health needs and seek structural transformation. At the Center for the Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation, he created the activist-in-residence program that houses activists for week-length dialogues on communication strategies.
[ In collaboration with Graham D. Bodie, he addressed the widening health-related disparities in America and advocated for incorporating health literacy into an Integrative Model of eHealth Use.
]
Media complementarity
Dutta has conducted various studies on the interconnectedness of media consumption and the role of communication in fostering social change. He introduced the concept of media complementarity, suggesting a congruence in the consumption of online and traditional media within specific content domains. By utilizing the theory of channel complementarity, he explored how individuals responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in terms of their communicative choices. Additionally, he examined the role of communication in planned social change and investigated how marginalized communities resist neoliberal interventions by actively participating in popular politics.
Intersectionality of racism
Dutta's research on the mechanisms of marginalization has dealt with interplay between global processes of whiteness and local racial dynamics. His paper on racism within communication studies examined how the status quo utilizes racial, ideological, and epistemological dynamics to marginalize minority groups. In 2019, he analyzed the Christchurch terror attack as a manifestation of global Islamophobia, investigating the dissemination of racist hatred through media, think tanks and grassroots groups. In the context of the genocide in Gaza being carried out by Israel, he highlighted the work of building voice infrastructures that listen to Palestinian accounts of settler colonial violence and apartheid.
Awards and honors
* 2005 – Charles Redding Award for Excellence in Teaching, Purdue University[
* 2006 – Lewis Donohew Outstanding Scholar in Health Communication Award, Kentucky Conference on Health Communication][
* 2016 – Applied/Public Policy Communication Researcher Award, International Communication Association][
* 2020 – Charles H. Woolbert Award, National Communication Association][
* 2022 - Bridge Award, International Risk and Crisis Communication Conference
* 2022 – Aubrey Fisher Mentorship Award, International Communications Association.][
* 2023 – Charles Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar Award
* 2023 – Gerald M Phillips Award for Distinguished Applied Communication Scholarship
]
Bibliography
Selected books
* ''Emerging Perspectives in Health Communication: Meaning, Culture, and Power'' (2008)
* ''Communicating Health: A Culture-centered Approach'' (2008)
* ''Communicating Social Change: Structure, Culture, and Agency'' (2011)
* ''Voices of Resistance: Communication and Social Change'' (2012)
* ''Neoliberal Health Organizing: Communication, Meaning, and Politics'' (2015)
* ''Imagining India in Discourse: Meaning, Power, Structure'' (2017)
* ''Communication, Culture and Social Change: Meaning, Co-option and Resistance'' (2020)
* ''Migrants and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Communication, Inequality, and Transformation'' (2023)
Selected articles
* Dutta, M. J. (2004). Primary sources of health information: Comparisons in the domain of health attitudes, health cognitions, and health behaviors. Health communication, 16(3), 273–288.
* Dutta, M. J. (2004). Complementarity in consumption of news types across traditional and new media. Journal of broadcasting & electronic media, 48(1), 41–60.
* Dutta, M. J. (2005). Theory and practice in health communication campaigns: A critical interrogation. Health communication, 18(2), 103–122.
* Dutta, M. J. (2006). Community participation and Internet use after September 11: Complementarity in channel consumption. Journal of computer-mediated communication, 11(2), 469–484.
* Dutta, M. J. (2007). Communicating about culture and health: Theorizing culture-centered and cultural sensitivity approaches. Communication Theory, 17(3), 304–328.
* Bodie, G. D., & Dutta, M. J. (2008). Understanding health literacy for strategic health marketing: eHealth literacy, health disparities, and the digital divide. Health marketing quarterly, 25(1–2), 175–203.
* Basu, A., & Dutta, M. J. (2009). Sex workers and HIV/AIDS: Analyzing participatory culture-centered health communication strategies. Human Communication Research, 35(1), 86–114.
* Dutta, M., & Pal, M. (2010). Dialog theory in marginalized settings: A subaltern studies approach. Communication Theory, 20(4), 363–386.
* Dutta, M. J. (2014). A culture-centered approach to listening: Voices of social change. International Journal of Listening, 28(2), 67–81.
* Dutta, M. J. (2018). Culture-centered approach in addressing health disparities: Communication infrastructures for subaltern voices. Communication Methods and Measures, 12(4), 239–259.
* Dutta, M. J., & Pal, M. (2020). Theorizing from the global south: Dismantling, resisting, and transforming communication theory. Communication Theory, 30(4), 349–369.
* Dutta, M., Ramasubramanian, S., Barrett, M., Elers, C., Sarwatay, D., Raghunath, P., ... & Zapata, D. (2021). Decolonizing Open Science: Southern Interventions. Journal of Communication, 71(5), 803–826.
* Mika, J. P., Dell, K., Elers, C., Dutta, M., & Tong, Q. (2022). Indigenous environmental defenders in Aotearoa New Zealand: Ihumātao and Ōroua River. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 18(2).
* Elers, C. H., & Dutta, M. (2024). Local government engagement practices and Indigenous interventions: Learning to listen to Indigenous voices. Human Communication Research, 50(1), 39–52.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dutta, Mohan
IIT Kharagpur alumni
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
North Dakota State University alumni
University of Minnesota alumni
Academic staff of Massey University
New Zealand non-fiction writers
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)