Notes on Methods

Mapping Mediated Politics: Some Studies in Indian Politics

6(2) 1–7
Thoughts on the Indian Case © 2018 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023018797774
http://journals.sagepub.com/home/inp

Diya Mehra1

In the last three decades, there has been an explosion of media platforms, as well as an access to media
by citizens in contemporary India. This short methodological essay considers the relationship of this grow-
ing and diversifying media environment with current political party and social movement politics, as
reflected in the contemporary Indian scholarship, and via my own experience of qualitative fieldwork.

Frameworks for Understanding Mediated Politics

At the outset, it should be noted that this is a developing field primarily because of the changing nature
of the media itself. Based on existing studies in the Indian case, thus, various timelines can be drawn in
reference to the metamorphosis and spread of different media forms and the shifting relationship of
media to the state and politics. In the case of the print media, important landmarks are not only the
Emergency that saw the emergence of a press critical of the state but also the post-liberalization period
which, in Shahana Udupa’s terms, witnessed the increasing commodification of news, its localization
and diversification, including through the rise of regional language media (Udupa, 2015). For the
electronic media, we can chronologically consider a ‘traditional’ media environment of government-
sponsored radio and television that lasted until the 1990s (Mehta, 2008) and a new media environment
starting from the late 1990s that also witnessed a similar and ‘less deferential relationship between the
media and the state’ (Schudson, 2002 quoted in Chakravartty & Roy, 2015, p. 6) Finally, the contemporary
moment is marked not only by interactive and dovetailed technologies, such as television, radio and print
media, but also social media, Whatsapp, Twitter, Facebook, etc., with all of these mediums increasingly
interlinked, and with media companies, political parties and social movements having, and attempting to
build, a presence across platforms that are available to a growing proportion of Indians, and to which
they increasingly turn for news.
In terms of analysis, Nalin Mehta (2008) points out that the recent qualitative social science literature
initially focused on the emergence of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a rising political force in the
1990s, given the adept use of mediated forms (television series, CDs, video cassettes, etc.) made by the

Note: This section is coordinated by Divya Vaid (divya.vaid.09@gmail.com).

1
  Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi, India.

Corresponding author:
Diya Mehra, Department of Sociology, South Asian University, New Delhi 110021, India.
E-mail: diya.mehra@sau.ac.in
2 Studies in Indian Politics 6(2)

party especially around the Ram Janmbhoomi movement. There is, Mehta writes, a current and renewed
interest in mediated politics because of the growing, and effective, use of media in politics by political
parties and social movements. Paradigmatic events that are often cited in the literature in this context are
the India Against Corruption movement, the emergence of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) (Narayanan &
Pradhan, 2016; Rodrigues, 2014; Udupa, 2014) and of course the extensive use of different media by
Mr Modi in his various campaigns (Chakravartty & Roy, 2015; Jaffrelot, 2013, 2015; Sinha, 2017).
In all three cases, large-scale identification and mobilization has partially been attributed to new media poli-
tics. How this is done and how such politics can be studied are, then, the subject of scholarly analysis.
In William Mazzarella’s words, a medium is not only ‘a material framework’ but also ‘a reflexive and
reifying technology’ that makes ‘society imaginable and intelligible to itself in the form of external repre-
sentations’ (Mazzarella, 2004, p. 346). Thus media is both intimate and distant as Mazzarella describes it,
connoting not only that it is technologically produced under certain, often capitalized, institutional, and
in this case, political circumstances but also that it appears, and is apprehended singularly, and in everyday
spaces. Unsurprisingly, then, studies of the relationship between contemporary media and politics
methodologically attempt to look at different aspects of this mediated formation—first, the production of
content for the media; second, its circulation in the public sphere; and finally, reception by audiences.
Most commonly, studies focus on the content and form of the mediated messages that are available in
the public sphere as these are easily accessible. This includes in the case of television, presentation of
self by political and social movement actors-in terms of body language, narratives and discourses, but
also through the organization of events that can be broadcast, and in the case of social media, the production
and dissemination of messages, symbols, memes and hashtags.
The literature (Chakravartty & Rao, 2015; Saeed, 2013; Udupa, 2015) also shows that there is a grow-
ing number of media players in terms of producers—including media conglomerates, English, Hindi and
regional language channels and niche platforms, even as political parties increasingly hire (or at least
institutionalize) media management, and as non-state actors and social movements become clued in to
the importance of media based messaging for heightened public visibility. One strand of new media
studies attempts to understand the institutional production of media forms through ethnographies of
mainly print journalism, television newsrooms and journalists themselves (Batabyal, 2014; Rao, 2010;
Udupa, 2015), not only with a particular focus on the new imperatives of commercialization—namely
media ownership, the importance of advertising and marketing and the corporate bottom line that impacts
both content and form, but also with a majority of the literature pointing to the growing presence of news
as ‘spectacular infotainment’. Success in this new ‘spectacular’ media environment, then, is centred on
the capacity to create eye-catching, and resonating, presentations of self, and of political messages,
through debates, sound bytes, bylines, hashtags, images, and so on.
Simultaneously, such work also points to the importance of the institutionalized ‘localization of
news’, implying that mediated messages are tailored to both particular geographies and publics. Indeed,
the creation of publics (Udupa & McDowell, 2017) via targeted messaging is a critical feature of new
media practices and different media platforms, as corporations, political parties and social movements
attempt to galvanize responsive publics. For Udupa (2015), who studied the metamorphosis of print
journalism in Bangalore, this represents both an attempt to speak to, and for, a normative, consumptive
middle class public as envisioned by large media companies and advertisers but also given that media is
increasingly available in different languages (and more recently through cost-effective technologies
mainly WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter), the presence of multiple attempts to create publics, with dif-
ferent messaging reaching different audiences. Mapping this process analytically also requires under-
standing that the content that is finally seen by audiences is itself produced through certain additions,
omissions and normative valences. Media ethnographies are thus attentive to both the backstory
Mehra 3

(offstage) that informs decision-making about publicized content, as well as the content that is actually
disseminated through various platforms. Given the presence of a diverse range of media actors—English,
Hindi, regional languages and so on—what is also required is an attentiveness to multiple, diverse
narratives and coverage of the same event as Udupa shows in her ethnography while also paying atten-
tion to critical silences and absences in/on certain media platforms.
For political parties, one crucial aspect is the importance of saturating the public sphere in terms of
political messaging and managing media/news cycles. It is noted by different scholars that the AAP and
the BJP in particular are especially effective at this, using multiple platforms simultaneously, and in the
case of the BJP, by hiring large PR and advertising firms (Sardesai, 2015). In the South Indian case, in
particular, as Ranganathan (2014) notes, political parties often own television channels and newspapers,
and thus ‘precipitate political events’ to be visible in the media (Ranganathan, 2014, p. 35) not just
amplifying events that have already gained some traction on the ground.
It should be noted, at this juncture, that accounts of media campaigns run by large and national
political parties are mainly available in accounts written by journalists and insiders themselves
(e.g., Sardesai, 2015) and not in the academic scholarship. Indeed, if we follow Mazzarella’s account of
mediation, one critical phenomenon that he points to is that heightened mediation is also accompanied
by an increasing awareness of mediation processes itself, even as media producers seek to present news
and newsworthy events, by naturalizing the process by which news is created. Methodologically,
academic writing has tended to depend on media accounts of the use of media, or to analyse publishable
content, or content available in the public sphere. There are very few ethnographies or studies of institu-
tional spaces themselves or of back-end production, especially in relation to political parties and their
messaging strategies. This is mainly, perhaps, due to a lack of timely access to evolving media strategies,
which is a critical challenge in doing this kind of work, especially if studying the media itself is not
the sole focus of the scholarship.

Studying the Media from the Field

Given this, how can academics attempting to work with media sources in the political realm understand
and analyse the role of media in their projects, especially in cases where the principle aim of a research
project is not studying the media, but the focus in on understanding the playing out of politics between
the state and other political opponents, civil society and social movements, relationships that have now
come to be increasingly mediated?
In 2008–2009, I followed a campaign run by Delhi traders against the court-induced, and executive
enforced, ‘sealing’ or closure of their properties (Mehra, 2012). The sealing crises was protested widely
by Delhi’s traders for a number of months, making it a critical event for the city’s two political parties,
its administration and also the courts, who had ruled for shop closures. The sealing drive was also widely
covered in the media. As an ethnographer, I was often present, along with a number of young journalists
at press conferences, court hearings and protest events that later became the subject of newspaper reports
and TV coverage. While my own objective was to understand urban politics, I soon found myself deeply
embedded in reading media effects, because of the intense coverage of the sealing drives and because,
often, it was the media narrative to which both the public and the state responded, as highlighting an
issue of some civic importance.
What this experience taught me was that understanding the strategic use of media in politics also
requires a presence in the field where ‘mediated’ events unfold. Why? First, certain media forms
4 Studies in Indian Politics 6(2)

especially in the case of SMS/WhatsApp groups require physical contact to access the network; that is
physical encounters with those organizing campaigns. For the traders, who were trying to build a
constituency, apart from SMS contact, print and television media coverage was also a critical resource to
mobilize, because unconnected audiences were able to follow events that often impacted their own lives.
In this context, we began to see ‘copycat’ events and organizing, as well as people being drawn into a
network, as they come to hear about social movements and civil society organizing. Paying attention to
how these networks were built, both in the field, and via the media, thus allowed me to get a sense of how
a campaign was being constructed and disseminated, the kinds of groups that were targeted, as well
as the messages sent out, while also actually being present at campaign events, having received prior
information via SMS texts.
Second, field events are also increasingly aimed at gaining and getting media attention. At their
events, traders attempted to shape the narrative on the sealing drive and hence the perception of different
audiences, who would eventually receive this discourse via the media. Because the sealing drive was
taking place in a large and diverse city, eventual media coverage of the campaign appeared targeted at
different publics, or pitched according to the public the media platform was responding to, so it was also
important for me to analyse how the same event/campaign was presented across platforms—English and
Hindi mainstream media versus smaller channels.
Conversations with journalists on the ground would not only provide crucial information and
perspective, but it also made clear that they (or their employers) already had both certain positions and
empathies, and as Batabyal (2014) points out, most journalists and editors are usually middle class.
The fact that different media houses picked up on different parts of the narrative or choose to cover or not
to cover certain events, are telling of the fact that the city itself was split on the sealing drive, and media
channels sought through their chosen coverage to speak to their designated public. Thus, while the Hindi
news channels were very sympathetic to the traders, the English language media sought to promote more
‘middle-class’ urban values in supporting the rationalizing of Delhi’s urban fabric. In this context, it was
important to consider both what was included in media coverage and why; how certain narratives,
metaphors and analogies played out, and finally what was left out, not by those organizing events but by
journalists, editors and anchors as they covered an event, thus shaping public perception in the process.
Third, in the case of the sealing drives, as with most contemporary politics, the media was also a
means by which different, competing political actors communicated with each other, including state
actors. In the case of the sealing drives, all political players—the state, the courts, the traders’ themselves—
organized events (press conferences, court hearings, protests) as political theatre—precisely for the
consumption of the city at large, and to either stymie or galvanize protesting publics and visibility and
support for their position. In this, they attempted not only to take a firm affective position but also to
appear deliberative and reasonable. The traders for their part undertook a number of ‘themed’ protests—
traders’ wives protest, motorcycle protest, employees protest, burning effigies, and so on—seeking new
ways to catch the media’s attention on the same topic, as the sealing drive continued for months. Middle
class Delhi residents who supported the sealing, also held counter-protests that were also picked up by
the press.
Interventions into the media sphere by political actors took on different strategies, which should also
be considered as part of a politically mediated methodology. Apart from presenting the official point
of view, the intervention of political actors also hinged on the assembling (and censoring) of media
images and discourses—the art of ‘spin’, of managing mediated flows and perceptions especially
of images and information. In the case of the sealing drive, thus, what became obvious is that on some
occasions information was partially provided, not provided or held back, buried, leaked or mis-reported
Mehra 5

(i.e., appeared different from what was witnessed at the field event) in the media. Thus, for example,
after a court hearing, different actors, including state officials and politicians, would produce different
narratives that were disseminated via the media, hoping to cast their own position in a positive light and
counter any oppositional discourse.
Within this arena, civil society groups had to work harder at producing media-worthy events, a burden
heavier on them as political parties, politicians and government appear to have assured media coverage.
State and political actors were also however, in particular, able to produce ‘media-worthy’ events and
shift media narratives through a different set of strategies that is producing news itself through adminis-
trative fiat. Thus, through the sealing drive, for example, selective sealing allowed state and dominant
political actors to bring certain issues/publics/impacts to the fore, while ‘backgrounding’ other aspects in
terms of the reportage that the average citizen read/saw. The courts by contrast, used court hearings to
make strong declarations, admonish the administration and the traders’, admonishments that would
appear as dominating headlines, both in print and in breaking news stories. Through this, the court
positioned itself as an unyielding player in the process. A return to the field the next day, would then see
a reassessment in the position of different players especially the traders, all of whom were attempting to
shape the mediated narrative, and hence sentiment in the city and among the general public.
The other aspect of such mediated politics, and the management of sentiment that it is important to
pay attention to, is temporality, especially in the context of 24#7 and ‘breaking news’ cultures, and shift-
ing Twitter/Facebook trends which bring news to audiences instantly and constantly. In terms of tempo-
rality, political actors (a) sought to maximize positive saturation and visibility of stories that validated
their position; (b) simultaneously, sought to ensure that negative stories, by contrast, were not widely
available, and for long periods of time, which required attempting to changing the mediated narrative,
or replace negative stories with other ‘breaking’ news possibilities, often entirely unrelated to the
event (a possibility, often, uniquely available to state and dominant political actors); and (c) respond to
criticisms from competing political opponents and also to public reactions.
The last point also gestures to the fact that increasingly media companies are working with interactive
platforms and models, actively seeking audience participation (citizen-journalists, etc.) in the form of
comments, creating hashtag trends and so on. In this context, a presence in the field, allowed one to
witness, both that citizens’ groups were not only capable of mobilizing a counter and/or citizens’ lead
mobilization effort especially through new social media technologies but also whether or not such
mobilization was acknowledged by different and corporate media platforms, given their own particular
stance vis-à-vis dominant and state authorized positions, including in deference to political parties, their
own bottom-line compulsions, and a reliance of ‘official’ discourse. In the case of the sealing drives,
public sentiment not only shifted and varied depending, of course, on the audiences’ own position (in real
life) but also in relationship to the perceived state of the city and its governance (‘order’ versus ‘chaos’,
‘good’ or ‘poor’ governance) as narrativized in the media and by different media actors.
Finally, while the sealing drive represents a ‘crises’ driven politics, a more everyday politics,
especially as run by political parties, may have different media strategies for short-term and long-term
agenda setting, utilizing different media platforms for different effects, partly dependent on their own
capacity to intervene in the public domain, promoting their own message while keeping an eye on
competing media strategies of other political players. In this context, it is important to consider how
political positions are staked, and stated, over long periods of time. Currently, there is very little
academic scholarship on this kind of media-based strategy, with most work, as mine, being focused on a
crises-driven or a campaign mode of politics.
6 Studies in Indian Politics 6(2)

As media platforms evolve, the political media environment and related strategies are increasingly
more complex. Political parties, it is apparent from the Cambridge Analytica scandal,1 are increasingly
amalgamating and working with large databases to target voters through social media; there is growing
talk of ‘fake news’ (Narrain, 2017) and its impact on everyday politics and publics, attacks on journalists
both via ‘trolling’ and ‘troll armies’ but also in everyday life, and an increasingly oligopolistic and polar-
ized media sphere, often with strong links to dominant political parties, as well as increased reportage of
heightened censorship, and the policing of media (including through media and Internet black-outs).
Simultaneously, certain incidents such as the Patel and Maratha agitations and the Dalit uprising after the
Una incident have shown (much like the sealing drive) that mobilizing publics via new media forms is
also a new and distinct possibility and not only for political parties. Given this, understanding the role of
media in contemporary political life appears crucial for academics and concerned citizens alike, as the
role of mediated politics is only set to expand. This essay has not only attempted to highlight methodo-
logical strategies for studying both the content of politics as deployed in the media but also sought to
consider such deployment as essentially strategic and some ways by which such strategy can be read.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of
this article.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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