Media Representations of the Impact of COVID-19 Lockdown on Migrant Labour in India

Abstract

An abrupt imposition of a nationwide lockdown certainly resulted in a havoc condition for the migrant communities of India. The concerns of the migrant laborers were extensively covered in the media as an eye-opener. It presented the bitter truth of the poor versus rich class struggle intrinsic to the Indian Society. The paper inspects the situations of the migrant laborers in India during the first lockdown period of COVID-19 as depicted by 3 leading media units namely, Dainik Bhaskar, Times of India, and NDTV. These units were selected using purposive sampling, further the news reported specifically on migrant workers was selected for the time period of the first lockdown in India. NVivo 12 software was used to analyze the data. Sentiment analysis, word tree analysis, and word cloud analysis were performed to understand the issues faced by the migrant workers during the initial phase of lockdown. The findings are presented by means of diagrams and tables. It was found that lockdown had negative experiences for the migrant community.