INDIAN MEDIA TODAY

The transformation of media in India - the world's largest democracy and one of its fastest growing economies - has implications for media and communication globally.

According to Goldman Sachs' estimates, within a generation India will become the planet's third largest economy, in terms of purchasing power parity. With 70 round-the-clock news channels - soon to touch three figures - unrivalled in any other country – India boasts the world's most linguistically diverse media landscape, as well its largest film factory.

According to the World Association of Newspapers, sale of newspapers in India is booming - between 2000 and 2008 circulation grew by 46 per cent: every day more than 99 million copies of newspapers are sold in India, at a time when newspapers are closing down in the West on a regular basis.

The Times of India now claims to be the world's largest circulated 'quality' English-language newspaper. From FM and community radio to on-line media, journalists are finding new ways to communicate with a demanding and fragmenting audience, including a young and vocal, middle-class diaspora.

The study of journalism has not kept up with this massive expansion and proliferation of media outlets, although it has led to a mushrooming of mostly private, vocationally-oriented journalism institutes.

The media revolution in India offers exciting opportunities, as well as challenges to professional journalists and scholars of international journalism.
This raises some key questions: has marketization and competition
encouraged journalists to move away from a public-service news agenda to a 'soft,' version of news, with its emphasis on consumer journalism, sports and entertainment?

Is a market-driven news media eroding the public sphere in a Habermasian sense, in a country where a majority of the people still live in poverty? Given the scale and globalizing tendencies of media in India, what are the international implications of these developments for journalism? (Source Internet)