In a world where stories and reels travel faster than the legacy media, communication has risen above just technical skill. It begs one to become responsible bearer of truth amidst the prevailing hatred and misinformation all around. With times, the Society of Jesus has always evolved in its thinking, and so has it found media formation to be an effective means to foster faith, justice and dialogue, to shape culture and education, and to make our apostolic life contemporary to the youth of today.
Against this backdrop, the Jesuit conference of South Asia in collaboration with the Karnataka Jesuit Province organized a 7-day Media & communication Workshop for Jesuit scholastics at St. Joseph’s University, Bangalore on 01-07 May 2026. The deeply enriching and transformation experience was given a vision by Fr. Vernard SJ, JCSA Communications Coordinator, and was meticulously organized and carried out by Frs. Pradeep Antony SJ and Arul Antony SJ of Karnataka Province Media Forum. Organized under the theme: “Media for Mission: Critical and creative use of Media,” the workshop united 11 Jesuit scholastics from 7 different provinces of our Conference, storming us with an immersive experience into the contemporary media world.
“Intense! Ecstatic! Fantastic! The day was inspiring, expanding, and truly outstanding. It helped me explore my writing abilities and appreciate the vital role journalists play in contributing to the welfare of society,” recalls Sch. Sangam Lakra SJ (DEL) about the workshop.
The first day, guided by Dr. Parinitha Shinde steered us towards becoming responsible communicators. This session on media literacy and Journalism, though exposed us to various facets of a journalist, for sure awakened the critique dormant in each one of us. From writing reports and enticing headlines to analyzing how the print media works, the session was an eye-opener resonating the Jesuit commitments of justice and truth as Promulgated in the GC32.
The power of storytelling is much stronger when the visuals are strong, raw and unfiltered. If the day-1 taught us to question the existing narratives, the day-2 taught us how to see them. We toured the world of visuals and storytelling, starting from the streets of Bangalore. Cameras became to us an instrument of observation, empathy and interpretation to seize the frames that speak volumes. Framing, composition, perspectives, light, and photography were indeed part of it, but what was deeply beckoning were the queries- “Do you have the ingenuity to bring to the world what matters the most?” “In the prevalent world of misinformation and fake news, do you have the audacity to capture what the mass media fail to?” Thanks to Mr. Jenil George for the insightful session.
The exposure visits to Bannerghatta National Park on the third day was icing the cake. We were ‘Men-with-Camera vs the Wild’. While the mass amazed at the animals in the park, these Jesuits with Canons shot even the tiniest details in plants, animals, butterflies, spiders and what not. Thanks to Fr. Anthony Arul for guiding us through!
While Visuals can speak million voices, a good audio can take it to another level of experience. Mr. Shabin and Ms. Shubha Das walked us through sound crafting & Image designing with A/v edits. It was a wholesome experience to do cinematic shoots, dubbing, editing and sound designing. The hands-on experience created some light-hearted experiences that we will, forever, cherish.
To start off film-making without a script is like galloping in vacuum. Dr. Marudhu Pandian expanded our understanding of writing scripts. The overview exposure to some classic movie scripts such as Jurassic Park, Interstellar, etc. widened our horizon of script writing.
