The

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

n media consists of several different types of communications of mass media:

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...

cinema Cinema may refer to: Film * Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography * Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image ** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking ...

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

, magazines, and Internet-based Websites/portals. Indian media was active since the late 18th century. The print media started in India as early as 1780. Radio broadcasting began in 1927. Indian media is among the oldest in the world. It dates back even before the reign of

Ashoka Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...

. today Many of the media are controlled by large, corporations, which reap revenue from advertising, subscriptions, and sale of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

ed material. India has over 500 satellite channels (more than 80 are news channels) and 70,000 newspapers, the biggest newspaper market in the world with over 100 million copies sold each day. The French NGO Reporters Without Borders compiles and publishes an annual ranking of countries based upon the organisation's assessment of its

Press Freedom Index The Press Freedom Index is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to re ...

. In 2022, India was ranked 150th out of 180 countries, which declined from 133rd rank in 2016. It stated that this was due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's

Bharatiya Janata Party The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; ; ) is a political party in India, and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. Since 2014, it has been the ruling political party in India under Narendra Mod ...

and their followers of

Hindutva Hindutva () is the predominant form of Hindu nationalism in India. The term was formulated as a political ideology by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in 1923. It is used by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the ...

having greater exertion of control of the media. Freedom house, a US-based NGO stated in its 2021 report that harassment of journalists increased under Modi's administration. The English-language media of India are described as traditionally

left-leaning Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

liberal, which has been a point of friction recently due to an upsurge in popularity of

Hindu nationalist Hindu nationalism has been collectively referred to as the expression of social and political thought, based on the native spiritual and cultural traditions of the Indian subcontinent. "Hindu nationalism" or the correct term ''Hindū rāṣṭ ...

politics. According to ''BBC News'', "A look at Indian news channels - be it English or Hindi - shows that fairly one-sided news prevails. And that side is BJP and Hindutva." ''

Hicky's Bengal Gazette ''Hicky's Bengal Gazette or the Original Calcutta General Advertiser'' was an English-language weekly newspaper published in Kolkata (then Calcutta), the capital of British India(then Known as the Presidency of Fort William.. It was the first ...

'', founded in 1780, was the first Indian newspaper.

Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment, best known for their ''Ciném ...

moving pictures were screened in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

during July 1895, and

radio broadcasting Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

began in 1927.

Press Council of Indian act 1978

The

Press Council of India The Press Council of India is a statutory, adjudicating organisation in India formed in 1966 by its parliament. It is the self-regulatory watchdog of the press, for the press and by the press, that operates under the Press Council Act of 1978., ...

acts as a mechanism for the press to regulate itself. It ensures that the Indian press is free and responsible. If the press is to function effectively as the watchdog of public interest, it must have a secure freedom of expression, unfettered and unhindered by any authority, organised bodies, or individuals. It ensures that the press must, therefore, scrupulously adhere to accepted norms of journalistic ethics and maintain high standards of professional conduct. Where the norms are breached and the freedom is defiled by unprofessional conduct, a way must exist to check and control it. But control by the government or official authorities may prove destructive of this freedom. Therefore, the best way is to let the peers of the profession, assisted by a few discerning laymen, regulate it through a properly structured, representative, and impartial machinery. Hence, the Press Council of India was established.

Overview

The traditional print media, but also the television media, are largely family-owned and often partake in self-censorship, primarily due to political ties by the owner and the

establishment Establishment may refer to: * The Establishment, a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization * The Establishment (club), a 1960s club in London, England * The Establishment (Pakistan), political terminology for the military ...

. However, the

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

are generally more professional and corporate-owned, though these, too, have been acquired or affiliated with established figures. At the same time, the Indian media, viewed as "feisty," have also not reported on issues of the media itself.

Print

The first newspaper printed in India was ''

'', started in 1780 under the

British Raj The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent; * * it is also called Crown rule in India, * * * * or Direct rule in India, * Quote: "Mill, who was him ...

by James Augustus Hicky. Other newspapers such as ''The India Gazette'', ''The Calcutta Gazette'', ''The Madras Courier'' (1785), and ''Bombay Gazette, The Bombay Herald'' (1789) soon followed. These newspapers carried news of the areas under the British Raj, British rule. The ''Bombay Samachar'', founded in 1822 and printed in Gujarati language, Gujarati is the oldest newspaper in Asia still in print. On 30 May 1826 ''Udant Martand'' (The Rising Sun), the first Hindi-language newspaper published in

, started from Calcutta (now Kolkata), published every Tuesday by Pandit, Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla. Even after Indian independence movement, independence from Britain in 1947, the English-language papers were prominent due to a number of reasons. The telegraphic circuits of news agencies used the Roman Alphabet and the Morse code, giving the English press an advantage in speed. The speed of typesetting was also much slower in Indian languages because of the Diacritics. Also, the press largely relied on advertisements of imported goods for revenue, and the foreign advertisers naturally preferred English-language media. The language of the administration had also remained English. Currently India publishes about 1,000 Hindi dailies that have a total circulation of about 80 million copies. English, the second language in terms of number of daily newspapers, has about 250 dailies with a circulation of about 40 million copies. The prominent Hindi newspapers are ''Dainik Jagran'', ''Dainik Bhaskar'', ''Amar Ujala'', ''Devbhumi Mirror'', ''Navbharat Times'', ''Hindustan Dainik'', ''Prabhat Khabar'', ''Rajasthan Patrika'', and ''Dainik Aaj''. In terms of readership, ''Dainik Jagran'' is the most popular Hindi daily with a total readership (TR) of 70,377,000, according to Indian Readership Survey, IRS Q1 2019. ''Dainik Bhaskar'' is the second most popular with a total readership of 51,405,000. ''Amar Ujala'' with a TR of 47,645,000, ''Rajasthan Patrika'' with a TR of 18,036,000 and ''Prabhat Khabar'' with a TR of 14,102,000 are placed at the next three positions. The total readership of the top 10 Hindi dailies is estimated at 188.68 million, nearly five times that of the top 10 English dailies that have a 38.76 million total readership. The prominent English newspapers are ''The Times of India'', founded in 1838 as ''The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce'' by Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd, a colonial enterprise now owned by an Indian Conglomerate (company), conglomerate; The Times Group. ''Hindustan Times, The Hindustan Times'' was founded in 1924 during the Indian Independence Movement ('Hindustan' being the historical name of

), it is published by HT Media Ltd. ''The Hindu'' was founded in 1878 by a group known as the Triplicane Six consisting of four law students and two teachers in Madras (now Chennai), it is now owned by The Hindu Group. In the 1950s, 214 daily newspapers were published in the country.Thomas, 105 Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various Languages of India, regional and national languages. This number rose to 3,805 dailies in 1993 with the total number of newspapers published in the country having reached 35,595. The main regional newspapers of India include the Marathi language ''Lokmat'', the Gujarati Language ''Gujarat Samachar'', the Malayalam language ''Malayala Manorama'', the Tamil language ''Daily Thanthi'', the Telugu language ''Eenadu'', the Kannada language ''Vijaya Karnataka'' and the Bengali language ''Anandabazar Patrika''. Newspaper sales in the country increased by 11.22% in 2007. By 2007, 62 of the world's best selling newspaper dailies were published in China, Japan, and

. India consumed 99 million newspaper copies as of 2007—making it the second largest market in the world for newspapers.

Dailies in India

*Top 10 Hindi Dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q4 2019 pdf'' *Top 10 English dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Surve
Q1 2019 [1
/nowiki>]'' *Top 10 regional dailies :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>''

Magazines in India

*Top 10 Hindi magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>'' *Top 10 English magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>'' *Top 10 regional magazines :''Ref: Indian Readership Survey Q1 201

/small>''

Broadcasting

Radio broadcasting was initiated in 1927 but became a state responsibility only in 1930.Schwartzberg (2008) In 1937 it was given the name ''All India Radio'' and since 1957 it has been called ''Akashvani (radio broadcaster), Akashvani''. Limited duration of television programming began in 1959, and complete broadcasting followed in 1965. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting owned and maintained the audio-visual apparatus—including the television channel ''Doordarshan''—in the country prior to the P. V. Narasimha Rao#Economic reforms, economic reforms of 1991.Thomas, 106 The Government of India played a significant role in using the audio-visual media for increasing mass education in India's rural swathes. Projected television screens provided engaging education in India's villages by the 1990s.In 1997, an autonomous body was established in the name of Prasar Bharti to take care of the public service broadcasting under the Prasar Bharati, Prasar Bharti Act. All India Radio and Doordarshan, which earlier were working as media units under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of I&B became constituents of the body. Following the economic reforms satellite television channels from around the world—including the BBC, CNN, CNBC, and other foreign television channels gained a foothold in the country.Thomas, 106–107 47 million households with television sets emerged in 1993, which was also the year when Rupert Murdoch entered the Indian market.Thomas, 107 Satellite television, Satellite and cable television soon gained a foothold. ''Doordarshan'', in turn, initiated reforms and modernisation. With 1,400 television stations as of 2009, the country ranks 4th in the list of countries by number of television broadcast stations.''CIA World Factbook: Field Listing – Television broadcast stations.''
/ref> On 16 November 2006, the Government of India released the community radio policy which allowed agricultural centres, educational institutions and civil society organisations to apply for a community-based Frequency modulation, FM broadcasting licence. Community radio is allowed 100 watt effective radiated power (ERP) with a maximum tower height of 30 Metres. The licence is valid for five years and one organisation can only get one licence, which is non-transferable and to be used for community development purposes.

Communications

The Indian Government acquired ES EVM computers from the Soviet Union, which were used in large companies and research laboratories.Desai (2006) Tata Consultancy Services – established in 1968 by the Tata Group – were the country's largest software producers during the 1960s. The 'microchip revolution' of the 1980s had convinced both Indira Gandhi and her successor Rajiv Gandhi that electronics and telecommunications were vital to India's growth and development. MTNL underwent technological improvements.Chand, 86 Between 1986 and 1987, the Indian government embarked upon the creation of three wide-area computer networking schemes: INDONET (intended to serve the IBM mainframes in India), NICNET (network for the National Informatics Centre), and the academic research oriented ERNET, Education and Research Network (ERNET).Wolcott & Goodman, 568 The Indian economy underwent economic reforms in 1991, leading to a new era of globalisation and international economic integration.Sharma (2006) Economic growth of over 6% annually was seen between 1993 and 2002. The economic reforms were driven in part by significant the internet usage in India.Wolcott & Goodman, 564 The new administration under Atal Bihari Vajpayee—which placed the development of Information technology among its top five priorities— formed the Indian National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development.Wolcott & Goodman, 564–565 Internet gained a foothold in India by 1998. India had a total of 100 million Internet users—comprising 8.5% of the country's population—by 2010.Se
''The World Factbook: Internet users''
an
''Internet World Stats''
By 2010, 13 million people in India also had access to broadband Internet— making it the 10th largest country in the world in terms of List of countries by number of broadband Internet users, broadband Internet users.

had a total of 34 million fixed lines in use by 2011.''CIA World Factbook: Rank Order – Telephones – main lines in use''.
/ref> In the Landline, fixed line arena, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, BSNL and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, MTNL are the incumbents in their respective areas of operation and continue to enjoy the dominant service provider status in the domain of fixed line services. BSNL controls 79% of fixed line share in the country. In the mobile phone, mobile telephony sector, Bharti Airtel controls 24.3% subscriber base followed by Reliance Communications with 18.9%, Vodafone with 18.8%, BSNL with 12.7% subscriber base as of June 2009.From the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India se
''Study paper on State of Indian Telecom Network''
an
''Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Press Release No. 89 /2006''.
India had a total of 880 million mobile phone connections by 2011.
/ref> Total Fixed line, fixed-line and wireless subscribers reached 688 million as of August 2010.

Motion pictures

The history of film in India begins with the screening of

moving pictures in

during the July 1895.Burra & Rao, 252 ''Raja Harishchandra'', a full-length feature film, was initiated in 1912 and completed later. ''Alam Ara'' (released 14 March 1931), directed by Ardeshir Irani, was the first Indian movie with dialogues.Burra & Rao, 253 Indian films were soon being followed throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East—where modest dressing and subdued sexuality of these films was found to be acceptable to the sensibilities of the audience belonging to the various Muslim world, Islamic countries of the region.Watson (2008) As cinema as a medium gained popularity in the country as many as 1,000 films in various languages of India were produced annually. Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, Hollywood also gained a foothold in India with special effects films such as ''Jurassic Park (film), Jurassic Park'' (1993) and ''Speed (1994 film), Speed'' (1994) being specially appreciated by the local audiences. Expatriates throughout the United Kingdom and in the United States continued to give rise to an international audiences to Indian movies, which, according to The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (2008) entry on ''Bollywood'', "continued to be formulaic story lines, expertly choreographed fight scenes, spectacular song-and-dance routines, emotion-charged melodrama, and larger-than-life heroes".Encyclopædia Britannica (2008), ''Bollywood''. Present-day

produces the most films of any country in the world.''Nation Master: Films produced (most recent) by country''
/ref> Major media investors in the country are production houses such as Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions, Aamir Khan Productions, Disney India and Reliance Entertainment. Most of these productions are funded by investors since there are limited banking and credit facilities maturity in India for the Film industry, motion picture industry. Many Multinational corporation, international corporations, such as Disney (formerly UTV Motion Pictures, UTV) and Viacom (2005–present), Viacom (Network18 Group, Network18 Studios) have entered the nation's media industry on a large scale.

Digital and online media

The early 2000s saw the advent of online and digital publishing in India. Traditional print dailies were the first to adapt and introduce their own digital versions of their print dailies and magazines. Today, India is the home of many online publications including digital-only news outlets, Magazines, News media, news portals and publishing houses.

List of notable digital-only publications

''(alphabetical order)'' * Altnews.in * Cobrapost * Dailyhunt (aggregator) * Firstpost * India Times * Khabar Lahariya * Newslaundry * One India * People's Archive of Rural India * Pinkvilla * ScoopWhoop * SheThePeople.TV * Scroll.in * The Better India * Two Circles * The Chenab Times * The Lallantop * The News Minute * ThePrint * The Quint * The Wire (India)

Riaan.tv

CryptoPurity

Newsclick.in

Defense news reporting in India

India has fought four wars since its independence from the British Raj, British in 1947. It has long running insurgency problems in Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu & Kashmir, the border state with Pakistan and also in the Northeast India, northeastern states, apart from internal security challenges. It has led to sustained audience interest in the issues related to national security and defence. Leading English and Hindi dailies cover defence issues in a major way, but niche defence specific reporting and publications have also taken root in the last 10 years.

List

* ''Sainik Samachar'' * ''Indian Military Review''

Ownership and funding

Digital media is opening up to paywalls and other subscription based models. However a majority of readers still do not pay for the content they read, causing the media houses to rely on other means of funding. ''Independent and Public Spirited Media Trust'' is a syndicate that promotes media in India with the aim of creating a news content creation network. It was founded in 2015 and funds organisations such as The Wire (India), The Wire, IndiaSpend, CGNet Swara, Alt News, AltNews, and The Caravan. Omidyar Network has invested in Scroll.in and Newslaundry. Odisha TV is owned by the Panda Family, Baijayant Panda, Baijayant Jay Panda. News Live (Indian TV channel), NewsLive in Assam is run by the wife of Himanta Biswa Sarma. ''The Caravan'' points out that NDTV, News Nation, India TV, News 24 (Indian TV channel), News24 and Network18 Group, Network18 are linked to Reliance Industries, Reliance. Another Indian billionaire businessman who funds media is Subhash Chandra.

Funding ideology

Investor Rohini Nilekani explains her ideology as follows:

Criticism

Some sections of Indian media, controlled by businessmen, Politicians, and government bureaucrats, are facing criticism for biased, motivated reporting, behave like one party owned or governing party owned and selective presentation. After the devastating April 2015 Nepal earthquake, earthquake in Nepal on 25 April 2015, in spite of

helping, tweets from Nepal trended effectively saying, "Go home, Indian media". Disturbed by corruption, Delhi chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal suggested on 3 May 2015 to have a public trial of Indian media. On 8 May 2015, the then I & B Minister, Arun Jaitley echoed a similar rhetoric saying that there was a, "flood of channels but dearth of facts". Of late, a lot of mainstream media channels have been accused of printing and telecasting unverified and biased news which they retracted later. In a few instances content from Twitter's parody accounts were cited as a source. Indian mainstream media has often been accused of showing sensationalized news items. In March 2018, the then Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said that, "journalists cannot write anything they imagine and behave as if they are sitting in some pulpit". Godi media is a pejorative term coined & popularised by NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar referring to the sensationalist and biased Indian mainstream media which supports the ruling party of India. It is also criticised for its overly creative reporting especially during COVID 19 pandemic and floods in 2018 Kerala floods, 2018, 2019 Kerala floods, 2019, 2020 floods, 2020 and 2021 which can create unwanted fear in the minds of viewers. Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana criticized Indian media in a speech in July 2022 accusing the media of running Kangaroo court, Kangaroo courts and running agenda driven debates without any accountability, which he thinks is bad for democracy. A report by Oxfam and Newslaundry found out that employees from general category constitute around 90% of leadership positions in the Indian media, which means that the marginalized communities like Dalit, Dalits, Adivasi, Adivasis and Bahujan, Bahujans do not have adequate representation.

Notes and References

Bibliography

* Burra, Rani Day & Rao, Maithili (2006), "Cinema", Encyclopedia of India, ''Encyclopaedia of India'' ''(vol. 1)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 252–259, Gale (publisher), Thomson Gale, . * Chand, Vikram K. (2006), ''Reinventing public service delivery in India: Selected Case Studies'', SAGE Publishing, Sage Publications, . * Desai, Ashok V. (2006), "Information and other Technology Development", ''Encyclopaedia of India (vol. 2)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 269–273, Thomson Gale, . * Schwartzberg, Joseph E. (2008), ''India'', Encyclopædia Britannica. * Sharma, Shalendra D. (2006), "Globalisation", ''Encyclopaedia of India (vol. 2)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 146–149, Thomson Gale, . * Thomas, Raju G. C. (2006), "Media", ''Encyclopaedia of India (vol. 3)'' edited by Stanley Wolpert, pp. 105–107, Thomson Gale, . * Watson, James L. (2008), ''Globalisation'', Encyclopædia Britannica. * Wolcott, P. & Goodman, S. E. (2003), ''Global Diffusion of the Internet – I India: Is the Elephant Learning to Dance?'', Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 11: 560–646.