Guest Lectures

Digital Polarization and the Future of Journalism in India

The work of journalism has been mediated by online spaces, especially Twitter/X for much of the last decade. In India, the incorporation and monetization of Twitter and YouTube for journalists to output their work and articulate their worldviews have enabled their arrangement along the lines of political positions they perform online. In this talk, I show that the framing of journalists through the lens of their politics undermines the work and credibility of professional journalism, and creates a space for digital influencers to muscle into being mediators of public opinion, especially as it relates to the outreach strategies of political parties. I argue that these trends are amplified by both the technological affordances of social media platforms and the network structures of communities that have succeeded in gaming these. This presents challenges to political accountability and democratic engagement in India and allows for new forms of institutional and discursive capture by redefining the contours of trustworthy information.