Indigenous Media Ecologies: Ritual Communication and Knowledge Transmission in the Nyishi Community of Arunachal Pradesh

This study examines the traditional communication and knowledge systems of the Nyishi tribe in East Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh, India, through media ecology and ritual communication theory. Drawing on 6 months of critical ethnographic fieldwork—comprising 30 semi-structured interviews, six focus groups and sustained participant observation—the research analyses how the community encodes and transmits traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) through oral traditions, ritual performance and symbolic networks. Data were analysed using NVivo 14, following Braun and Clarke’s (2006, Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3 , 2, 77–101) reflexive thematic analysis protocol, producing three master themes from 147 initial codes. Findings reveal resilient non-technological media ecologies that preserve environmental knowledge while adapting to the pressures of digital convergence and infrastructural modernisation. The study argues that Nyishi communication systems constitute subaltern counter-publics that challenge technological determinism in media theory and advance the decolonisation of communication studies. By centring a South Asian indigenous context, the article expands media ecology beyond its predominantly Western, technology-centric applications.