Introduction
In our first volume, Indian Media in a Globalised World, we outlined how the globalisation era of late modernity (Giddens 1991) reached the Indian economy in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the acceleration in private and foreign investment and deregulation of market forces. The Indian media and entertainment industry, as a significant and visible part of this transition, was also transformed. About 25 years ago, television was the first to experience the de facto regulation with the entry of private and foreign channels with the assistance of satellite technology. The audiovisual media industry was dramatically changed from a government-owned single network to a multi-network industry. Competition ...
Maya Ranganathan*
The changed role of media is most evident in the intersection of television and politics, which has led to unforeseen changes in the public space. The flood of entrepreneurs who sought to get into the media business following the economic liberalisation of 1991 changed the media landscape, which was until then dominated by ‘controlled, sometimes development-oriented, propaganda-induced television programming’ (Rodrigues 2010: 1). Commercial motives began to drive private television, as expected. Interestingly, the move led to the ‘creation of newer modes of public action and publicness’, which Mehta details in his book on Indian television (2008: 9). It has also led to greater politicisation of media, ...
Maya Ranganathan
The leap to ‘infotainment’ that media outlets have made in the race for profits and the consequent dilution of the ‘watchdog’ role of media is a universal phenomenon that has been the subject of much analysis. As pointed out elsewhere in this volume, the trend has become increasingly apparent in India in the age of globalisation. This chapter elaborates some of the ways in which the unbridled race for profits has impacted upon journalism. Attempts to draw more audiences and advertisers have resulted in newer genres of news, one of which is focused on below: ‘sting operations’.
A recent development closely tied to increasing levels of corruption in society, sting journalism, in ...