Divided Media

This book addresses the complex relationship between India’s evolving, emerging media landscape, the political and economic interests of diverse media actors, and movements opposing contentious issues such as market-based economic reforms and religious nationalism.

Through the complexities of mainstream news media and emerging digital culture in the eastern city of Kolkata, this book foregrounds regional and linguistic variations in the studies of media, movements, and politics in India. By focusing on popular movements against agricultural land acquisition in the state of West Bengal, in 2006 and 2007, and contemporary citizen-led activisms, this book captures the tension between mainstream media’s political and commercial logic, movements and digital activisms questioning dominant development and religious nationalist agenda, and the possibilities of political diversity and democratic participation. Situating the study in a multi-hybrid digital space that intimately integrates the old and new media, this book draws on critical, thematic analysis of newspaper coverage, digital qualitative studies of techno-commercial features such as hashtags and viral videos, and extensive interviews. This book proposes the theoretical concept of a hybrid partisan system, and argues that heterogeneity –– the complex, dynamic interaction of commercially-run media’s political alliances, the commercial logic, and hybrid professional norms –– remains consequential for movement visibilities, but contributes to deep ambiguities and commonalities in core issues such as industrialization in a developing economy.

This book would be relevant to scholars of journalism, political communication, media systems, and mediated activisms in communication studies, sociology, political science, and South Asian studies.