Bella Mody: Work In Progress

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WORK IN PROGRESS

This research project investigates journalism's supply of political knowledge to citizens in India's democracy. The contribution of newspapers to informed citizenship is measured by content analysis measuring the quantity, quality and regional equality of political knowledge distribution. The content area selected for analysis of newspaper representations is the indigenous armed struggle modelled on China's Maoist revolution, the alternative to electoral democracy that both the Manmohan Singh and Narendra Modi administrations consider India's greatest internal security threat. All coverage from 2011 to 2012 in the highest circulation daily in each of five languages (Hindi, Telegu, Bengali, Urdu and English) was selected for analysis. Findings will focus on the differences in the amount of coverage, topics that set the public agenda, how they were framed, and how the stories performed on a specially prepared news comprehensiveness index.