Neoliberalism and the rewriting of the Indian leader

Abstract

In this article, I discuss recent changes in Indian leadership images. In a commercialized press, political journalists have adopted new writing styles that turn former political heroes into ambiguous human beings. This development is fueled by a neoliberal restructuring that has fundamentally altered journalists’ professional environment. By viewing press activity through the lens of a major ideological shift, I seek to contribute to an emerging debate about neoliberal practices. I contend that current transitions within the Indian press are not a smooth sail into a new ideological realm but a contradictory practice of personal empowerment through selective reflexivity.

Emplacing India's “medicities”

“…Ursula Rao has described how economic liberalization in the 1990s contributed to the rapid commercialization of the Indian news business" (Rao 2010, p. 717). So while the national press is now virtually independent of political financing and often highly critical of politicians, journalists find themselves under immense pressure to appease corporate customers, who lobby for feelgood journalism and advertorials aimed at the middle-class consumer (Rao 2010). There was also a disproportionate expansion of print and online niche market business news, with at least four national daily English-language economic newspapers as well as regional and national supplements on business news in virtually all major newspapers and dozens of national business news magazines, almost all with online counterparts (Chakravartty & Schiller 2010).…”

Cyborg political machines

“…Works in mediatization often emphasize its outcomes-like when it results in the oversimplification of complex political processes into televisual political slogans; or when it interpellates citizens as passive spectators of entertainment politics (Hall, Goldstein, and Ingram 2016), in which hyperbolic candidates grotesquely incarnate the tastes, lifestyles, and social realities of voters instead of representing their interests (Rao 2010;Lempert and Silverstein 2012). 2017 | Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (2): 255-277…”

Coverage of the Financial Crisis in English Language Print Media in India

“…It is this link with advertising that often prevents journalists from questioning the structures of neoliberalism in society, and instead to become mouthpieces of a neoliberal culture that celebrates consumerism and unbridled consumption. In newly expanding media markets like in India, the zeal among newspapers to attract advertisers has caused the editorial content to be geared more towards 'feel-good' journalism (Rao 2010). Infotainment is now the norm to increase circulation and revenue (Rao 2010).…”

“…In India, for instance, 'neoliberal reforms and structural adjustment have contributed to the rapid commercialization of the Indian news business' (Rao 2010, p. 717). To boost profits, the media often adopt 'pro-industry measures' (Rao 2010, p. 717) and target an urban, educated middle-class audience to please advertisers (Rao 2010). Reporters engaged in this 'feel-good journalism' (Rao 2010, p. 717) Creative Communications, 9, 3 (2014): 199-213 ignore the financial woes of the vast majority of Indians while engaging themselves in circulating aspirational soft news such as discussions about the country's growing ratio of billionaires globally, symbolizing India's burgeoning prosperity in the global arena (Chakravartty & Schiller 2010).…”