This paper draws on Horst’s (2013) call to examine the political economy of what was then the ‘third wave’ of mobile communications research and examines the media industry’s evolution and more recent trends. It develops a basis for considering advertising-free news outlet Newslaundry’s reportage on YouTube and Instagram alongside popular news influencer channels on the same platforms, Dhruv Rathee and The Deshbhakt. These proposed cases offer a lens on alternative models in India’s rapidly changing mediascape and on the audience participation visible in publicly available material. Further research could examine these channels’ subscriber-driven communities and mobile applications through autoethnographic analysis. The review brings together debates about mobile communication, community formation, media consumption and journalism in the Indian context. It asks how convergences between production and audiences create new commercial forms, extending the questions raised by Girija’s (2019) study of Newslaundry’s advertiser-free model.
The peculiar position of mobile phones and their affordances in the present era is hotly debated: at once, they are considered a site of disintegration of traditional conceptions of communities and a reinforcing tool for new forms of them (Goggin and Crawford 2012). Mobile media studies have explored the effects of developments in the world of mobility and how it has changed youth culture in light of themes such as ‘communicating, consuming, communing, and controlling’ (Golding 2005). Specifically, Golding (2005) explores the effects of real-time data dissemination and the ‘information-grazing’ lifestyle, consumption via monetary means, communing to converse, and control and personalisation of the virtual realm. This idea is not novel: similar debates surrounded the television’s development – whether to view it as a source of connection or disconnection (Goggin and Crawford 2012). This debate now recurs with the rise of digital media platforms, which are not insulated from these critiques and find themselves negotiating the convergence between media and their audiences. Gergen (2008), who represented a more critical school of thought, argued that mobile communication and digital media have eroded civic participation, resulting in ‘monadic clusters of close relationships’ and a withdrawal from the public sphere (ibid.). On the other hand, Ling (2008), who acknowledges Gergen’s viewpoint, adds that this theory of distancing can be an oversimplification as new forms of relationships and organising politically may emerge as well. Golding (2005) and Horst (2013) follow similar threads in their understanding of technology’s transformative potential, stating that it doesn’t merely add to an existing media toolset but morphs with and affects the institutions around it, be it societal, technological, financial, governmental, or administrative. Goggin and Crawford (2012) expand on the societal aspect, focussing on conceptions of youth and community, also noting the complex array of forces at play. Mishra and Gupta’s (2019) findings on Indian youth’s participation in politics confirm the intricacies at play, distinguishing growth in electoral turnout from a lack of corresponding change in active campaign participation during the period they examine.
Emerging media technologies and infrastructure were built, notably in the Global South, and communications research in the 21st century draws attention to the fact that these technologies have emerged in increments funded by foreign interest and investment in developing markets (Horst 2013, Girija 2020). News media has been among the sites where the commercial model was deployed and developed. Fischer et al.’s (2022) study of English- and German-speaking political influencers on YouTube identifies diversified commercial practices, ‘microcelebrity management’ and branding, alongside ‘partisan mockery’ that brings news and opinion together. These findings offer a comparison for the proposed Indian cases, rather than evidence of how those cases operate. This trend is also evident on TikTok, where we see a personal brand that lies at the intersection of ‘organizational, professional, and personal identities’ (Negreira-Rey et al. 2022). When one examines these findings alongside Girija’s (2019) study of Newslaundry, another inadvertent commercial layer becomes apparent: data mining of their audience by large platforms like Facebook and YouTube, on which Newslaundry reaches new readers and viewers and engages with them. Girija (2019), however, acknowledges Newslaundry’s potential to offer an alternative media space while challenging its claims to provide news as a public service within a capitalist structure. Hence, we see a negotiation at play between digital news’ tendency to engage in influencer-branding practices, create new community forms, and an attempt to disseminate accurate information.
Conversations about such changes in academia have also often involved a pathologizing of the youth and the communities and practices that evolve around them. The coupling of the terms has also drawn interest from communications scholars in identifying healthy versus bad formations as a common discursive thread (Goggin and Crawford 2012). One widely accepted notion of these formations is the push and pull (Ling 2012) of gemeinschaft (community, friendship, neighbourhood) and gesellschaft (business, formalities, and legalities) as there’s a will to commerce and to kinship at once in mobile communications (Ling 2012). Here, one must also consider how parasocial relationships slot into the mix as they occupy a unique position between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft: the influencer-audience interactions are prone to creating trans-parasocial relationships, with a greater degree of interactivity through efforts like face-to-face meetups, live streams, online polls, and so on (Lou 2021). How these relationships translate into revenue for the proposed cases remains a question for further research. In the communities that form around Newslaundry and consume their content, editorial staff describe taking audience reactions seriously while retaining control over what they produce (Girija 2019). Here, intimate community concepts are interwoven with the aim of sustaining business.
In light of these ideas, it is also important to consider India’s right-wing populist climate, the IT Rules 2021, and the looming risk of vigilante publics silencing journalists (Abhishek 2022). This contested set of rules opens up a complaint feedback mechanism where audience members can file ‘grievances’ against the digital news channels, which must resolve them or face legal action (ibid.). Such a move is in lockstep with Girija’s (2020) observation that governmental forces use legal provisions to keep the media in check. She also draws attention to defamation laws, which allow powerful individuals to muffle media organisations using legal provisions, placing journalistic independence at risk (ibid.). A question arising from this literature is how the risk of vigilantism associated with the IT Rules 2021 affects such news media efforts as Newslaundry, Dhruv Rathee, and The Deshbhakt. Specifically, it would be critical to examine if the community effect that they have harnessed through trans-parasocial acts on YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and other communication platforms provides a bulwark against the threat.
The present exploration looks at the implications of mobile communication on community formation, media consumption, and journalism in India. The neat slotting of digital news platforms and channels into traditionally capitalistic roles proves a challenge, especially as we situate them in the Indian context and explore their efforts to build new forms of community and challenge mainstream narratives. Challenging mainstream narratives does not, by itself, establish a commitment to news as a public service; the influencer literature also raises questions about branding and partisan mockery. Moreover, community values and commercial interest in the digital space often intersect and are complicated by the rise of parasocial relationships enabled by mobile communication. Further research, however, will prove critical in understanding how these new forms of news media are evolving. While Girija’s (2019) study of Newslaundry presents an understanding of the organisation’s commercial model and journalistic ideas, their subscriber community characteristics and non-traditional frames of reportage require further examination. Such research will lay the ground for going beyond traditional debates of ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ institutions and gaining a nuanced understanding of the negotiation between gemeinschaft and gesellschaft.