Nikhil Reddy Kondam

Nikhil Reddy is a teaching assistant and a Ph.D. student in the Mass Communication-Media Studies and Arts program at the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Ohio University, enrolled in fall 2023-24. Nikhil holds a bachelor's (Osmania University) in Mass Communication and Journalism and a master's degree (University of Hyderabad) in Communication-Media Studies. His passion for learning and educational background studying media and communication made him keenly observe the rising appetite for digital content consumption and platformization. Having grown up with digital technology, he believes his intellectual curiosity has been continually stoked by the manner in which big tech companies have become part of our everyday communicative environment across personal, public, and professional spaces.

With the same inquisitiveness and all the theoretical and practical knowledge gained during his master's program, he co-authored a study titled "Women Entrepreneurs' Use of Facebook Live: An Exploratory Study," which was presented at the annual conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research in June 2022.

Nikhil also worked as a research assistant on a freelance basis under Prof. Usha Raman (Professor, Dept. of Communication, University of Hyderabad) for the DBT-India Alliance project STOP Epilepsy. This project aims to develop, implement, and evaluate a community-based primary care model of care for Epilepsy in India. As a research assistant, he assisted the team with field research (focus group interviews and materials testing) and IEC (Information, Education, and Communication) materials development. He also interned with the Digital Media Wing (IT, E&C Dept.), Government of Telangana. As a native speaker of the Telugu language, he facilitated the department with the localization of content, i.e., to enable and simplify the usage of Telugu on digital platforms both for citizens and government entities.

Nikhil's research interests include but are not limited to media studies, digital cultures, and platform studies.