Is there an online journalism in India?

BY jyothi| IN Digital Media | 26/01/2003

The bad news is that we don`t have the likes of a Salon or a Wired magazine in India, but the good news is that the scene is changing for the better.

Jyothi Kiran

Quick, name an Indian news website you visit regularly. No, not the Asia/India editions of the BBC.com. I mean news content generated in India about India. Timesofindia.com? Expressindia.com? But these are web versions of their printed editions! Ditto for magazines, outlookindia.com and a myriad others.

The names that come to mind when we think of original Indian online websites are Rediff.com and the then Mahesh.com. Rediff is the pioneer on Internet communications closely followed by the one man India directory Mahesh.com which later transformed itself into Indiainfo.com. And then of course there came a thousand india.coms during the dot com boom and vanished without a trace after the hype exploded. At present, the two most popular horizontal portals competing for online users in India are the Indiatimes.com and Indiainfo.com. In addition to the news websites, there are scores of IT related web magazines like cyberindiaonline and expresscomputers, but these are mostly technical in nature. 

The company that truly altered the face of online media in India is of course Tarun Tejpal`s Tehelka.com. The website for investigative journalism that should have altered the history of modern Indian journalism, Tehelka today finds itself haunted and hounded by the government, is caught in legal hassles and awaits for investors for its survival. Among the companies that made a lot of noise but died with the Dotcom bust is Indya.com  which was later sold out to the Star network. In effect, what we call as online journalism in India today mostly refers to the online presence of the established television and print media organizations such as the Times group, Zee networks, NDTV.com, and the HindustanTimes.com.

But then news is only a part of online journalism

It is in the business of community building that online journalism truly makes its presence felt.

Being able to get specific information instantly, to be able to immediately participate in heated discussions in online coffee bars, and the opportunity to be a part of special interest groups and communities are just some of the advantages of the online media. In fact, it is in the business of community building that online journalism truly makes its presence felt. If people flock to sites like sulekha.com and ammas.com, it is rarely due to their news content but mostly because of their specific interest topics and coffee house discussions that the users get to generate. Online journalism fills the gap between news, information and community involvement. Also, online media happens to be the most democratic of all the existing media since everybody can write in to voice his or her opinion. There is no editor to give you a filtered down version of the news. Unlike in the traditional media, where readers are invited to participate in topics mostly initiated by a high brow editor, there is no such intellectual DIVide in the online media.

Delivering raw content and finding your USP

Everybody in the online media is a potential content producer/consumer. Mike Ward, author of Journalism Online says `there is no place for a false hierarchy between news and information imposed by the journalist when it is the user who defines what is news to him or her. The fact that content is both generated and consumed by the user is what makes online media special as against the traditional media where content comes filtered by the editor. Here in lies the potential of the the online media which is best exploited by a small but definitely growing strong independent media publishers such as the indymedia.com. 

Online sites are best suited for voicing alternate views and have tremendous potential as media watch dogs. Sevanti Ninan, a media analyst who writes for the print publications says she started the hoot.org because the traditional media does not like the spotlight turned on itself. She feels that In order to survive on the net, you would need to find your USP, else you will end up as just another website. 

India is yet to fully exploit the online potential

Print publications continue to dominate the scene and the paradigm shift from linear news mode to nonlinear mode has not yet happened. There are a number of reasons for this.  The country`s poor telecom infrastructure of only 2.2 lines per 100 citizens and as many of the existing lines is not of a high quality to support adequate Internet connection speeds. 

Also, as eMarketer reports Internet in India is still considered a luxury only few people can afford as poverty level remains low and income distribution unequal. Potential Internet users still amount to a very small proportion of the population. 

Even though Internet users amount to a very small percentage, there is a positive growth in the number of users. According to an international survey "Global eCommerce Report 2002" by TNS Interactive, the population of Internet users in India is 16%, up from 13% in 2001 and 10% in 2000. The survey involved 42,238 people in 37 countries. (TNS Interactive at TNS Interactive, June 2002)

When it comes to online journalism education related to India, we still have a long way to go. We don`t have any Poynters and Annenbergs, as yet and there are very few journalism schools in India that teach online journalism. But the trend is changing. Some journalism schools like the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media do have a serious New Media (IIJNM) program. 

The bad news is that we don`t have the likes of a salon or a wired magazine in India, but the good news is that the scene is changing for the better. People have realized that there is a gap that needs to be bridged and some are trying sincerely to change the online journalism scene in India. Thehoot.org and Indianonlinejournalism.com are some examples.

Jyothi Kiran teaches online journalism at the IIJNM. Contact: JyothiK@iijnm.org