EXPERT SESSION
Rapporteur: Kabbyashree Dasgupta
18 Oct. 2019: An expert session was taken by Dr. Umashankar Pandey, an Assistant Professor and
HOD of Journalism and Mass Communication in Surendranath College for Women, Kolkata, in D101
of SLS, PDPU on 18th October, 2019.
The session took place from 2pm-5pm, where he discussed topics like Communication Theories,
Communication Misunderstandings, Amygdala Attack, Eco Chambers, Tribalism, Fast and Slow
Thinking, OCCAN and also shared his knowledge on the Spiral of Silence. The session was attended
by undergraduate students of 5th and 7th semester and M.A. students of 1st semester of Dept. of
Languages, Literature and Aesthetics (LLA) in PDPU. The expert enlightened us with interesting facts
on topics like What We Cannot Communicate, and how one criticism stays with a person for 26 hours
while a praise stays with us for 8 hours only. The expert talk proved to be quite captivating and
interesting for the students and as well as some faculty members.
Dr. Pandey completed his Masters and PhD in Journalism and Mass Communication from the
University of Calcutta, India. Apart from that, he is a member of the Board of Studies at a number of
Indian Universities. He has presented papers at a number of international conferences at San
Francisco, San Juan, Seattle, London, Dublin, Durban, Istanbul, Bangkok, Colombo, Hyderabad and
Kathmandu. He was initially a senior journalist with The Asian Age, Kolkata. He was also an Editorial
Board Member at a number of International Journals. He has published over 15 papers in refereed
journals. At present he’s working on an International Project on Journalistic Role Performance and
another UGC Project on New Media Literacy, he seeks interest in Research Topics like Framing of
election news and Study of social media activity. He is also a visiting Faculty at a number of National
and International universities.
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