Digital News Media in India

Rise of the New Guard

Internet access in India is growing rapidly and is one of the few markets where there is scope for further digital growth. According to World Internet Statistics, about 34 percent of India’s over 1 billion population has Internet access and this number is only set to grow in the next few years. Of these, the majority of the people access the Internet through their cell phones. As CNN points out, more than 60 percent of the population still does not have access to the Internet or owns a smartphone.



CNN published this article that examines India's growing market for smartphones as well as the potential technology companies foresee in the country.

The low entry threshold afforded by digital services has meant that a number of digital-first news media sites have emerged to provide news that mainstream media does not highlight or cover for various reasons. Many of them were started by former journalists who quit their mainstream jobs due to financial and/or political pressures that made them incapable of doing the journalism they wanted to pursue (Choudhary, 2016).


Digital technologies have made it easy for increasing diversity in the Indian news media. There are different kinds of news start-ups now operating in the country, from data journalism as practiced by Indiaspend; to the Indian version of BuzzFeed, called ScoopWhoop; to one that focuses on youth issues, called Youth ki Awaaz, translated as “The Voice of the Youth”; and one that only examines rural issues and concerns in India, called People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI). There also are a rising number of sites that focus on confirming the veracity of news stories published in India, such as Altnews and FactChecker.in. 

This trend is not different from countries around the world; the Internet has allowed for a diversity of voices to emerge in the form of start-ups that not only challenge the hierarchy of media organizations established by the older, legacy companies but also the process by which news is selected and the people who select it (Usher, 2017).

Thus, the stories that one may see on these sites are not the ones prioritized by mainstream media and a diversity in the voices heard through independent news media are beneficial for the health of a democracy (Hoag, 2008). This story published in Indian business paper Business Standard provides context on this issue.
 
The next section picks a few start-ups that have had a positive impact on journalism in India and talks about them in greater detail.
 

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