"This report examines the social media strategies of a sample of six leading English-language Indian news organisations, two newspapers (Hindustan Times and The Indian Express), two television stations (NDTV and News18), and two digital-born organisations (Firstpost and The Quint). The context is ex
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tensive mobile internet access across India and a large and growing number of social media users, which have led news organisations to invest in social media. The organisations we focus on are oriented towards a predominantly affluent and urban English-speaking elite, and thus not representative of the industry as a whole, but they do provide a starting point for understanding how Indian news media are handling the challenges and opportunities that come with the rise of social media platforms. On the basis of interviews with senior editors and executives, as well as analysis of the Facebook and Twitter output of each organisation, we find that: Facebook is the most important social media platform for all the organisations covered here, in part because of its very large user base, but also because the company has collaborated actively with a number of Indian publishers. Twitter is seen as important for breaking news and for reaching elites, but has fewer users, drives less traffic, provides less support, and offers fewer opportunities for monetisation. News organisations take different strategic and operational approaches to social media. Strategically, most of the organisations covered here primarily pursue an on-site strategy oriented towards driving social media referrals to their website (where content can be monetised through advertising), though the recently launched digital-born organisation The Quint has embraced a greater off-site component, and has built large audiences via social media. Operationally, several organisations operate with a centralised social media team that creates, curates, and promotes content across social media, but some operate with decentralised teams where people across the newsroom are responsible for social media." (Executive summary)
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"In this report, we have analysed how the Hindustan Times, Dainik Jagran, and Malayala Manorama are changing their newsroom organisation and journalistic work to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment. Our analysis shows that all three newspapers are investing in expanding their digital
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activities to pursue new opportunities as digital media become more important in India, and print relatively less so. All are investing significantly more effort in digital operations than they did in the past, and more than many other Indian newspapers. This includes investments in new technology and staff with new expertise, as well as training of existing staff. We find important variations in how they are changing. At the Hindustan Times, senior editorial and managerial leaders have worked together to integrate print and digital newsrooms into one cross-platform operation equally adept at serving audiences across print, website, mobile app, and social channels. At Malayala Manorama, and especially Dainik Jagran, the transition seems to have been led more exclusively by management, and the focus has been on expanding parallel digital operations that are not part of the print newspaper organisation. By creating a brand of their own, distinct from but built on that of their print newspapers, opening up new offices and hiring new personnel to perform digital news work, Jagran Online and Manorama Online partially circumvented the inertia that often hampers attempt to change an incumbent organisation where people are proud of what they have accomplished in the past. Because they are building parallel units, they do not have to deal with the issues that arise when moving from a print to a digital or platform-agnostic newsroom." (Conclusion)
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