Mass media in India

Journalism
Areas
Genres
Social impact
News media
Roles

Mass media in India consists of several different means of communication: television, radio, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based websites/portals. Indian media was active since the late 18th century. The print media started in India as early as 1780. Radio broadcasting began in 1927.[1][2] Today much of the media is controlled by large, corporations, which reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of copyrighted material.

India has over 500 satellite channels (more than 80 are news channels) and 70,000 newspapers, the biggest newspaper market in the world with over 100 million copies sold each day.[3]

The French NGO Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of its Press Freedom Index. In its 2023 downgraded India by 11 points to 161st level out of 180 countries. Indian media freedom now stands below Afghanistan, Somalia and Columbia. It stated its reason saying "The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy”, ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right."[4] In 2022, India was ranked 150th, which declined from 133rd rank in 2016. It stated that this was due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party and their followers of Hindutva having greater exertion of control of the media.[5] Freedom House, a US-based NGO stated in its 2021 report that harassment of journalists increased under Modi's administration.[6] The English-language media of India are described as traditionally left-leaning liberal, which has been a point of friction recently due to an upsurge in popularity of Hindu nationalist politics.[7] According to BBC News, "A look at Indian news channels - be it English or Hindi - shows that fairly one-sided news prevails. And that side is BJP and Hindutva."[8]

Hicky's Bengal Gazette, founded in 1780, was the first Indian newspaper. Auguste and Louis Lumière moving pictures were screened in Bombay during July 1895, and radio broadcasting began in 1927.[9]

  1. ^ "History of Mass media from NIMC top media college New Delhi". Archived from the original on 16 January 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  2. ^ "History of Mass Media in India". National Institute of Mass Communication. Archived from the original on 16 January 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  3. ^ "Why are India's media under fire?". BBC News. 19 January 2012. Archived from the original on 3 June 2018. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  4. ^ "India | RSF". rsf.org. Archived from the original on 6 May 2023. Retrieved 7 May 2023.
  5. ^ "RSF Index for 2022 Sees India's Global Press Freedom Ranking Fall to 150 From 142". The Wire. 3 May 2022. Archived from the original on 24 August 2022. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  6. ^ Freedom House (2021). "India". Freedom in the World. Archived from the original on 4 March 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2021.
  7. ^ "Indian media: how free is it really?". South China Morning Post. 11 September 2016. Archived from the original on 3 October 2019. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  8. ^ Bhattsali, Amitabh (2 December 2022). "NDTV ownership change: Will anyone else in India challenge the government like this?". BBC Bangla. Archived from the original on 1 December 2022. Retrieved 1 December 2022.
  9. ^ See Thomas 2006 and Burra & Rao 2006.