Re-Writing Politics: Consumerist Messages and the Emergence of a New Style of Political Reporting in ‘Liberalized’ India
Ursula Rao, Sociology and Anthropology, University of New South Wales
The paper explores the contradiction of a simultaneous gain and loss of freedom of speech as a result of neo-liberal politics. It is based on ten months of field work among journalists in Lucknow, India and engages with journalistic practices and the way they are situated within a shifting social landscape in contemporary India. The starting point of the paper is a radial shift in publication politics of Indian newspapers since the liberalization of the Indian economy in 1991. This has lead to a rapid commercialization of the press and thus to a change in the attitude towards news. Today, journalists are forced to adopt a pro-industry stance in much of their writing. While this puts great strain on critical reporting, the dependence and dependability on private finances have also had a positive effect. Journalism has been liberated from overt political patronage, which had earlier been prevalent. Thus coupled with the crowning of new heroes from the private industry, there emerges a new style of political criticism, that puts political leaders on the defensive, by revealing corrupt practices, criticising authorisation styles of rule, exposing false promises and wasteful spending etc. While this emerging trend contributes towards the making of a fresh interpretative realm in the political domain, it also puts into practice a new global tendency of devaluing political institutions and celebrating the free market. It is within this matrix that the debate of resistance gains complexity, divorcing the notion of resistance from a naïve celebration of agency and instead exploring the highly contradictory nature of shifting perspectives.
