Screening the Public Sphere: Media and Democracy in India

449 Pages·2016·4.636 MB·English

by  Saima Saeed

Contents c i
Screening the Public Sphere

Contents c iii
Screening the Public Sphere
Media and Democracy in India
Saima Saeed
LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI
iv C Protecting the Unprotected
First published 2013 in India
by Routledge
912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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First issued in paperback 2015
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2013 Saima Saeed
Typeset by
Bukprint India
B-180A, Guru Nanak Pura, Laxmi Nagar
Delhi 110 092
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 13: 978-1-138-66401-2 (pbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-81244-3 (hbk)
Contents c v
To My Parents

Contents c vii
CONTENTS
List of Tables ix
List of Figures xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Preface xvii
Acknowledgements xix
Part I: Social Theory and Contours of Media:
Designing News as a Body of Knowledge
I ntroduction: Four Elements Towards a Social
T heory of the Media 3
1. Citizenship and the Right to Communicate 17
2. Public Knowledge: Dialectics of Constructivism
and Realism 28
3. Criticality, Truth-telling and Accountability:
The Question of Legitimacy 42
4. Power, Ideology and the Production of Meaning 54
5. Cataloguing the News Media: Notes on
Research Design 68
Part II: Political Economy of Television News
in India: Ownership Patterns and Content
6. Broadcasting History in India 87
7. A Political Economy Tradition of Television News 112
8. TV News Ownership Patterns in India: 1991–2012 123
9. Ownership Patterns and Its Impact on News
Values and Content 144
10. From the UK Phone Hacking Scandal to the
Radia Tapes: Professional Practices, Objectivity
and Truthiness in the Newsroom 176
11. Breaking on Anna: How TV News Lost out
on Criticality 216
viii Contents
Part III: Broadcasting in the Service of the Public:
Televising Bharat
12. Public Service Broadcasting as Value and the
Value of Public Service Broadcasting 237
13. The Politics of Public Service Broadcasting in India:
Media Policy Ad Hocism and Its Pitfalls 255
14. The Privatization of Public Good: Auditing the
Developmental Reportage Defcit on Indian Television 267
Part IV: Television News and Civic Engagement:
Implications for Democracy and Development
15. News Consumption and Public Knowledge 295
16. Television News, Political Participation and
Development 324
17. News as if Citizens Matter: Paradigmatic Shifts in
the Four Elements of a Social Theory of the Media 344
Notes 365
Select Bibliography 373
Appendix 409
About the Author 411
Index 413
Contents c ix
LIST OF TABLES
5.1 Media Organizations Surveyed through
Questionnaires 83
8.1 Estimated Market Size of News Sub-genres 138
8.2 Revenue Break-up of TVTN’s Four Channels 141
9.1 Channel-wise Break-up of Programme Categories 148
9.2 Newsworthiness of Political Stories 150
9.3 Growing Importance of Entertainment Stories on
Indian News Channels 158
10.1 Sensationalism and Commercialization in Television
News 190
10.2 Relationship between Convergence of News and
Entertainment and the Systematic Diminishing
of Social Content 193
10.3 Relations between Commercial Imperatives of
Media after Liberalization and the Systematic
Diminishing of Social Content 195
10.4 Correlation Matrix for Factors Infuencing News
Values 206
10.5 Three Extracted Components that have a
Maximum Infuence on News Values 209
14.1 Programming Composition of DD News
(2007–08) 273
14.2 Programme Sources of DD News (2007–08) 273
14.3 Programming Composition of DD National
(2007–08) 274
14.4 Programme Sources of DD National (2007–08) 275
14.5 Programming Composition of DD Bharati
(2007–08) 276
14.6 Trust and Truth-telling: Doordarshan vs.
Private News Channels 282