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Tribal reaction on social media to mainstream media portrayal of tribals Samarjit Kachari Assistant Professor Dept of Electronic Media and Mass Communication Pondicherry University The portrayal of tribals in Indian media, have not received much attention from researchers. As per the census of 2011 India’s tribals includes 8.6 % of the total population of the country. But their representation in Media along with the Scheduled Castes is almost nil as shown in the study done by BN Unyal in 1996 and Robin Jeffrey also demonstrated the same in his book ‘India’s newspaper revolution’ published in 2010. As a result of which their portrayal in the media has been through the lens of the mainstream or dominant communities who work in the media. In the same vein the indigenous Bodo tribe in Assam also has no presence in Guwahati based Assamese or English mainstream media in Assam. Members of the Bodo tribe are spread in almost all parts of Assam, with major concentration along the Assam-Bhutan and Assam- Arunachal borders. The Bodos, who constitute the largest tribe in Assam, have their own language and a distinct culture. They have for long been asserting their independent identity exclusive of the mainstream Assamese identity and thereby not assimilating into the mainstream Assamese culture. Apart from it the Bodos are also demanding for the creation of a separate Bodoland state by bifurcating Assam. This act of the Bodos has annoyed many in the mainstream Assamese society, who take pride in the composite Assamese identity and the geographical area called Assam. Though Bodoland movement halted for a while with the creation of Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD), an arrangement for tribal autonomy under the provisions of the 6th Schedule of Indian constitution, the movement has gathered steam once again. Invariably the mainstream media which is owned and dominated by journalists from the mainstream Assamese communities is not considered to have a neutral view about the Bodos. Hence it is important to explore how Bodo youths perceived the depiction of their political struggle, language, society and culture in Assamese media. In the post-independence period the initial discourse of tribes was dominated by need for integration of tribes into the state as its citizens and on the other hand the other discourse was to seek assimilation of tribes into the mainstream Hindu culture. Both these discourses were without the tribes. With the spread Theyyam 18