Filling In the News Market Gap: Mapping News Production Practices and Role Conceptions of Journalists at Journalistic Online Start-Ups in India
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| Publicado en: | PQDT - Global (2025) |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
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| Acceso en línea: | Citation/Abstract Full Text - PDF |
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| Resumen: | If news production requires epistemic answers that express and recognize the various issues diverse social groups face, it is essential to talk about substitutes for conventional news media. Such social tension has forced journalistic online start-ups to develop their own editorial and news content strategies that differentiate themselves from their competitors. Several media scholars argued that journalistic online start-ups contested the inherent conventions about how news stories are selected, who possess the capacity to select, what expertise and workplace cultures news organizations necessitate, and what forms of innovations might strengthen the degree of reputation of a news enterprise. In unveiling their journalistic activities, digital news start-ups feature the potential to address the shortcomings unfulfilled by traditional news media organizations, contest the conventional routines and beliefs of mainstream media, curate stories of social importance and reflect public discourses of societal issues, integrate innovative news reporting practices, for instance, podcasts, social media snippets, and the application of data visualization techniques by hiring a mix of mainstream and independent news professionals who exhibit new means of storytelling while sustaining freedom from the state power. Such advancements have notably brought about paradigmatic shifts in how news is shaped across online platforms, opening new challenges for journalistic online start-ups. India is currently observing a noteworthy development within the news media landscape, with a notable rise in digital news start-ups all competing for readers attention and viewed as a transformational period in Indian journalism. Scholarship on India’s digital news start-up ecosystem has barely been explored in the broader context of entrepreneurial journalism research. Much of the digital news start-ups research in the Indian context investigated constraints and promising opportunities due to the rise of online social networks and news consumption patterns across different nations including India. Additionally, a handful of studies have examined how these digital news start-ups situate within the larger Indian news media landscape and their impact on the journalism they undertake. They explored business models, editorial policies, content creation approaches, news dissemination strategies (Dahiya, 2023; Prasad, 2021a), and social identity of the founders of these news start-ups (Harlow & Chadha, 2019). Otherwise stated, in reviewing the past research, there exists an epistemological gap and empirical-based inquiry in understanding news production practices by English and vernacular journalistic online start-ups within India’s digital news media ecosystem. Furthermore, in a pluralistic society like India, newsroom routines, norms, cultures, practices, structures, news reporters’ judgments, and editorial decisions function heterogeneously across journalistic online start-ups, raising vital question on how news is produced at each stage of the news production process. Finally, journalistic online start-ups establish an appealing case study for exploring how they shape their editorial practices and concrete means of storytelling by producing small and long-form stories in text and video interactives. This dissertation therefore investigates English and vernacular digital news start-ups in India within the confines of how professional norms, routines, cultures, journalistic practices, and principles of social media platforms, in conjunction with regulatory structures, influence news production processes. This study also delves to investigate journalists’ understanding of their roles and influence on the selection and presentation of news within the existing complex media system in India. The overarching theoretical framework rests upon institutional logics, and more specifically, around social media logics, professional logics and state logics, and role conception theory to understand the tensions and connections between actors in news production. The decisive benefit in the utilization of institutional logics and role conception theory offers an imperative framework to analyze the key components news production practice at English and vernacular journalistic online start-ups. This thesis applied a multiple-case study approach by examining seven journalistic online startups. To rationalize diversity, cases were selected geographically and linguistically using the maximum variation approach. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 news professionals comprising of news entrepreneurs, editors, sub-editors, journalists, and social media editors by centering on news production practices. The choice of informants was achieved by using purposive sampling to accentuate rich empirical data. Anchored by the theoretical framework, the data was analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) through open, axial, and selective coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2014). By means of comparative analytical design the study indicate that although the convergence of news media technologies into newsrooms has blurred the boundaries of news production practices, digital news start-ups continue to lean towards prevailing journalistic norms and practices despite functioning purely in digital media space. Second, social media significantly impacts the production and distribution of news stories. Third, apart from utilization of social media, digital news start-ups are also influenced and impacted by local contextual factors, such as area of operations, digital news media regulation, their roles and interference of state actors. The findings presented in this thesis also reveal that there are commonalities and differences in news production –across English and vernacular digital news start-ups. In line with these insights, this research study also develops a contingency process framework of news production. By studying this cohort of journalistic online start-ups vis à vis their news production practices, this study contributes to entrepreneurial journalism scholarship by highlighting how these digital news start-ups interact and influence the broader field of Indian journalism by carrying different institutional and cultural understandings of their role in modern Indian society. |
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| ISBN: | 9798288810329 |
| Fuente: | ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global |