Ammu Joseph


Ammu Joseph is a journalist, author, media analyst and editorial consultant and author based in Bangalore, India. Ammu writes primarily on issues relating to gender, human development, the media and culture. She writes for a number of mainstream publications and web-based media.

Education

Joseph received her B.A. in English literature from Women's Christian College, Chennai in 1974, a diploma in Social Communications Media from Sophia College Polytechnic in Mumbai in 1975, and a B.S. in Public Communications from Syracuse University, New York in 1975. She has also been a press fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, England.

Career

Joseph started her career as a journalist with Eve's Weekly, for which she served as Assistant Editor for four years.
In 2007, Joseph served as Coordinator – India for the Global Media Monitoring Project and Coordinator – South Asia for the Global Report on Women in the News Media.
In 2012, Joseph was among the principal drafters of UNESCO’s Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media. She serves on the board of Oxfam India, a non-for profit organization. She has been on the visiting faculty of the Sophia College Polytechnic, Mumbai and the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai/Madras, and is currently teaching at the Convergence Institute of Media, Management & Information Technology, Bangalore. She is a founder-member of the Network of Women in Media, India, and co-editor of its website.
She contributes to a number of mainstream publications and web-based media. She also wrote a fortnightly column on current affairs and social issues for children in The Hindu's Young World supplement for eight years in the 1990s under the pseudonym Uma.At present she is also editorial consultant for Voices for Change, a quarterly publication of Voices/Madhyam Communications, a Bangalore-based NGO focusing on communications in and for development.
Her more recent work includes writing for Re / Shaping Cultural Policies ; Inside the News: Challenges and Aspirations of Women Journalists in Asia and the Pacific ; Media and Gender: A Scholarly Agenda for a Global Alliance ; The Palgrave International Handbook of Women and Journalism ; the Learning Resource Kit to Strengthen Gender-Ethical Journalism ; The Media in South Asia ; Missing Half the Story: Journalism as if Gender Matters ; Tsunami 2004: Communication Perspectives. She also contributed to UNESCO's World Trends in the State of Freedom of Expression and Media Development and Gender Sensitive Indicators for Media.
In her last full-time job, she was Magazine Editor of The India Post in Mumbai.

Works

Joseph has published the following books
  1. Whose News? The Media and Women's Issues
  2. Women in Journalism: Making News
  3. Storylines: Conversations with Women Writers
  4. Just Between Us: Women Speak about their Writing
  5. Interior Decoration: Poems by 54 Women in 10 Languages
  6. Terror, Counter-Terror: Women Speak Out

    Awards

Joseph was awarded the Donna Allen Award for Feminist Advocacy by the Commission on the Status of Women of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, USA, in 2003. In 2007, Joseph received the UNFPA-LAADLI Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in recognition of her consistent engagement with gender issues.

Selected publications