1.
Introduction
The increased adoption of Internet-related technologies and applications
in India has supported the formation of a number of digital media
organisations
that do not depend on the traditional business model of audience
commodification and corporate funding through advertisements (Sen
and Nielsen 2016; Robinson,
Grennan and Schiffrin 2015; Bearak 2014;
Kohli-Khandekar 2013a). These media
claim to
offer public service news devoid of any corporate influence, with the
help of
interactive online technology. However, their growth has led to an
erosion of
their credibility, due to hyper-commercialisation, their proximity to
power
centres, biased coverage, and censorship (Thakurta
2012;
Bhushan 2013; Ninan
2014).
The nexus
between
corporate media and political power structures is neither a new
phenomenon, nor
is it limited to India. Writing on the US market, McChesney (2010,
400) states that large media “use their power
to commercialise content to the greatest extent possible and if
necessary, to protect
their political interests”. According to Herman and Chomsky’s (2002,
2) propaganda model, concentrated ownership
of the media, owner wealth, the profit orientation of the dominant
mass-media
firms, advertising as a primary income source, and the reliance of the
media on
information provided by governments can all work as filters in
selecting
content, thereby preventing anything that works against the interest
of the big
media firms from appearing before the public.
In this
context,
it is pertinent to ask whether interactive online technologies can
actually
create media organisations untainted by the economic rationalities of
capitalism. To address this question, this article analyses the news
production
and distribution process of Newslaundry
(https://www.newslaundry.com/),
a
for-profit digital news media organisation in India that does not
accept
advertisements. This is part of a larger study, and Newslaundry,
is one of the three organisations selected using Patton’s (1990,
169-170)
“extreme or deviant case sampling”
method. For the study, the researcher considered organisations
that are
established and led by former journalists, and that want to
position themselves
as public service news providers by rejecting advertising
revenues. In a media
landscape dominated by the advertiser-subsidised, corporate
owned/controlled
mainstream media, such organisations were considered as deviant
cases for the
study.
Other
considerations for selection included the firms’ digital nature,
funding
patterns, and types of content. These conditions were pertinent to
understanding the political economy of digital news media. Digital
news media
organisations that depended totally on the Internet for the
production and
distribution of news were selected for the study, and online sites
with print
or broadcast operations were excluded. Media sites that only host
opinions and
experts’ views were not considered for the study, as the definition
of ‘news
media’ in the study design included organisations with formal
editorial staff
who conduct reportage and analysis from the field. In addition, the
study did
not consider organisations that have received funding from companies
with close
linkages to mainstream media either in the form of ownership or
debt/equity
funding. Readership of these media organisations, however, was not a
criterion
for selection, as no such data was available. When the study began
in 2015, there
were five media organisations in India that met these criteria for
inclusion in
the study. Of these five cases, two were for-profit firms and three
were
not-for-profit organisations. Although the researcher contacted all
five
organisations, only three agreed to participate in the research, and
Newslaundry was one of
them.
Founded by journalists Madhu Trehan, Prashant Sareen,
Abhinandan Sekhri, and entrepreneur Roopak Kapoor, Newslaundry launched its operations in September 2012. Trehan, the
co-founder and editor-in-chief of Newslaundry,
was the founding editor of India’s leading news weekly India Today and the country’s first video news magazine Newstrack.
Sekhri, the chief executive
officer (CEO) and co-founder of Newslaundry,
is also a trustee of Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF), a
Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) founded by Delhi Chief Minister
and Aam
Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Arvind Kejriwal. Sareen and Kapoor are
directors of
Small Screen, a production house that makes documentaries, TV shows,
and
corporate videos. Newslaundry
was
incubated by Small Screen and later became a separate company. News
Laundry
Media Pvt Ltd, which runs the media portal Newslaundry,
raised funding from Omidyar Network, which was established in February
2016 by
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and a number of angel investors. Eicher
Motors’
former chairman Vikram Lal, serial entrepreneur Abhijit Bhandari,
Seedfund
co-founder Mahesh Murthy, and Shashank Bhagat, through Unite India
Periodical
Pvt Ltd where he is partner and director, have also invested in Newslaundry.
On May 16, 2016, the
organisation had 22 employees. The site’s main revenue source is
reader
subscriptions. Newslaundry’s active subscriber number varies between
400 –
1,100 (Bansal 2016). Apart from
subscriptions, Newslaundry
sells news-related
merchandise on its site for revenues. It also produces content for
other media
platforms like ScoopWhoop,
one of the
largest youth portals in India.
This
article’s aim
is to understand online technologies’ potential to offer a
participatory media
space devoid of corporate influence and the capitalist logic of
commodification
and commercialisation. Although the article employs a case study
approach, it
compares the organisation under study to a market dominated by
advertiser-subsidised mainstream media in order to identify
differences and
similarities in ad-less media’s production and distribution processes.
In doing
so, the article aims to contribute to the study of the political
economy of
digital news media and technology.
The
article draws
on mixed methods research, including 25 interviews with Newslaundry founders, editorial staff, and mainstream journalists
and consultations of a wide variety of text materials. The study
demonstrates
that it is almost impossible for an ad-less digital news organisation
to escape
the capitalist logic of production and offer news as a public service.
This is
because such media operate in a market economy, where large
corporations own
and operate technology and related infrastructure.
The
following
section discusses the Indian media market and provides a brief
historical
overview of the way media is owned and operated in the country. The
third
section details the critical frameworks and the importance of using
critical
theories to analyse the research data. This is followed by a section
on
research design and an empirically supported analysis on the
limitations of the
Newslaundry’s public service news model. The article also examines
technology’s
role in the commodification of ad-less digital media and the
difference between
user participation and participatory democracy.
2. The
Indian Media Market
Research suggests that the commercialisation of Indian media started even before the country initiated economic liberalisation in 1991. Robin Jeffrey (1994) contends that capitalist enterprises were present from the attainment of independence in 1947. He argues that the country’s three newspaper monitoring bodies – The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC), the Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), and the Indian Readership Survey (IRS) – represent a stage in the evolution of the Indian state’s economic structure, the impact of advertising, and the state’s effort to control media through advertising. The Indian state has always played a major role in the media industry, as did the colonial government that preceded it (Thomas 2010, 107-108). The Indian government has always kept a tight leash on the media through regulations, and the broadcast segment was a government monopoly owned by the state until 1992. Corporate control in the broadcast industry began in 1992 with the launch of Star Television by a Hong Kong-based group. Prior to this, broadcasting was the monopoly of the state-owned enterprise Doordarshan.
The
motivations of
Indian news organisations have long been linked to profit and
political
influence. According to the First Press Commission report published in
1953,
proprietors continued to operate newspapers because of the support
provided by
a domestic economy flush with post-World War II profits. Owners of
print
businesses had the opportunity to wield influence in public affairs (Kohli-Khandekar 2013b, 19-20).
The
present media
scenario is a continuation of this trend. Desai (2012)
argues that in the twenty-first century, journalism entails giving
visibility to
brands rather than agitating against power structures, and that when
profiteering became media companies’ primary objective, journalism
lost its
character as a provider of information for the public good. Even the
expansion
of Indian regional dailies in the 1980s and 1990s reflects the steady
flow of
advertising revenues (Jeffrey 1997). Ninan
(2007, 201) also describes how circulation
incentives and advertising
were able to underwrite Hindi dailies’ localisation.
Corporate
control
and political influence in the media industry are growing in India
with the
rise in mergers and acquisitions. In 2012, the Aditya Birla Group
acquired a
27.5% stake in Living Media India, which publishes influential
magazines such
as India Today and Business
Today (Datta and Sheikh 2012).
Media reports (Bahree 2014; Pahwa
2014)
indicate that in a complex deal initiated in 2012, Reliance, a large
Indian
conglomerate, acquired Network 18, a leading player in the broadcast
segment.
This acquisition gave Reliance majority control over the regional
broadcaster
ETV.
Commercialisation
and
corporate control have resulted in the loss of editorial independence.
Arun
(2014) argues that the state and big
businesses use
instruments such as advertising withdrawals and defamation notices to
threaten
journalists. Today, India has over 135 news channels, a third of which
are
owned by politicians and real estate entrepreneurs. Politicians own
over 60% of
the country's local cable systems, and they block at will channels
they do not
control. After the 2009 general elections, it came to light that some
of the
largest newspapers accepted bribes from candidates for the publication
and
suppression of stories (Kohli-Khandekar
2014).
Corporate
control
is also extreme. Circulation revenues constitute just 5-15% of English
newspapers’ income, and television news in India is almost completely
dependent
on advertising. Unlike international broadcast companies, which
generate 55% of
their revenue from subscription or pay, in India, advertising
contributes 80%
of the average news channel’s revenues (Kohli-Khandekar
2013b,
90). Consequently, as Bhushan (2013)
has
noted, in the television newsroom “the promoter’s fancies and
political
preferences have taken precedence over editorial judgment”.
The state
of
affairs prevailing in India has triggered the Telecom Regulatory
Authority of
India (TRAI), the country’s telecom and media regulator, to recommend
the
restriction of corporate media ownership by prohibiting religious
bodies and
government-funded entities from entering the broadcasting business (TRAI 2013, 26-27). However, in a media market
like
India’s, where the government itself is a large advertiser (Dubbudu
2015) and a major beneficiary of the present
media-political power structure, these recommendations are yet to be
translated
into policies.
The more damaging development has been the submissiveness displayed by the mainstream Indian media in the face of the pressure tactics used by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in power at the Centre. Nielsen (2017) writes that there is a “creeping quiet in Indian journalism” with journalists admitting that there is “a climate of fear”. Mody (2018) attributes the displeasure of the central government as the reason for the exit of many senior editors in India. She goes on to point out that the mainstream media blanked out these incidents and the posts by some of these editors on social media.
The
evidence suggests that, guided by the
capitalist logic of commodification and commercialisation, mainstream
media in
India are focused on reinforcing and perpetuating economic and
political power
structures, thereby undermining the role of the media in a democratic
society.
3. Conceptual
Framework
The popularity of interactive digital
technologies and Internet-related applications such as social media
has
triggered a large number of studies that highlight the participatory
nature and
emancipatory potential of these technologies. Benkler (2006,
30-32) states that the Internet “expands its reach by
decentralising the
capital structure of production and distribution of information,
culture, and
knowledge”. He argues that the Internet can help reverse the
“concentration and
commercialisation of cultural production” by opening up alternative
courses of
action for people as individuals and as social actors. Jenkins (2006,
4-9) talks about the “participatory culture”
brought about by media convergence and the emergence of “newly
empowered”,
“active” and “socially connected” consumers. He contends that
participatory
culture has led to “an alternative source of media power”. Picard
argues that
the digitisation that has created convergence between the media,
computing, and
telecommunications industries has in turn increased “flexibility and
speed,
create[d] economies of scope and integration that change the economics
of
content distribution, and
shift[ed] greater control to consumers by allowing them to select,
filter,
search, control, and participate in multiple forms of communication” (Picard 2011, 6).
However, the relationship between technology and society
is more complex than these studies suggest, prompting many critical
scholars to
question the deterministic approach. As Fuchs (2009,
75)
remarks, “the task of critical Internet theory is to discuss how the
fundamental concepts that characterize modern society and its negation
can be
applied to the relationship of the Internet and society so that they
function
as critical categories”. In accordance with Marxian dialectical
materialism,
Fuchs identifies antagonistic structures in the Internet system. Like
the
antagonistic forces of competition and cooperation which shape
capitalist
society, online techno-social practices are also characterised by
opposing
forces. The commodification of information leads to restricted access
and
transforms information into a private good. Fuchs considers Google,
Yahoo,
YouTube, and social networking sites such as Facebook as “commodified
Internet
space”, as they are governed by accumulation logic and offer free
goods or
platforms to attract users and sell space to advertisers (2009,
80).
Andrejevic also questions some scholars’ tendency to
automatically associate interactive participation and democratic
empowerment.
He states that “a critical media studies 2.0” should not be limited to
“elaborating upon the dramatic transformations in media technologies
and their
uses” (2009, 36). Critical studies on
new media
technologies, according to Andrejevic (2011,
97),
should highlight the difference between “access to the means of online
content
production and ownership or control over these resources”.
This article draws on these critical
perspectives to understand Newslaundry’s
news
production and distribution process and analyses the relations of
production embedded in this process. It also scrutinises ad-less
digital
media’s technology-aided low-cost production and distribution process
to
understand its potential to offer a participatory space for democratic
interaction.
4. Methodology
This article is part of a larger
exploratory study of the political economy of digital news media in
India. The
study follows a qualitative approach to analyse three case studies, as
the
subject of the investigation –
ad-less digital news media – is not well understood or covered in Indian academic research. The
researcher adopted a multiple case study approach to ensure
methodological
rigour: Miles and Huberman (1994, 29)
argue
that such an approach helps in “strengthening the precision, the
validity and
stability of the findings”. To test the study’s feasibility, the
researcher
conducted a pilot study in 2015. This study report was used to frame
the
research questions and interview questionnaires.
Empirical evidence for this article was collected by
integrating qualitative methods of three types. The first was the 10
semi-structured interviews conducted with the founders, editorial
staff, and
contributors of Newslaundry between
May
and August 2016. In order to contextualise and build on the interview
data,
the researcher also used a wide assortment of texts related to Newslaundry,
including news reports,
trade material, research reports, published interviews with the
founders, and
editorial information on the site; as well as informal interviews with
mainstream journalists.
For the semi-structured interviews, a questionnaire
consisting of 25 questions was sent to the participants in advance.
The
questions focused on Newslaundry’s
revenue
model, funding, its reasons for choosing an ad-less business model,
its
use of technology, and its audience/readers and their participation in
news
production and distribution. The interviews were recorded and were
transcribed
manually. The transcriptions were later sent to the interviewees for
their
approval. For the informal interviews with mainstream media
journalists, the
researcher used a purposive sampling method. Twenty-three journalists
were
contacted. These individuals were professionally acquainted with the
founders
and editorial staff of the three digital news media under study and
had over 10
years of experience in mainstream media (print, TV, or both). Of the
23
journalists, 15 agreed to participate, and the researcher conducted
face-to-face informal interviews with them between October 2015 and
March 2017.
For the informal interviews, no formal questionnaire was used. The
researcher
provided detailed information regarding the study’s purpose and scope
and
possible talking points at the time of seeking the interviewees’
participation.
As part of this, emails were sent to all of them and later followed up
on phone
to ensure that they received the communication and that they
understood the
research objectives. Talking points mainly covered the journalists’
perspective
on digital news media space in general and ad-less media in
particular; the
advantages and disadvantages of ad-less revenue models; and the
principles that
guide the functioning of such media in a corporate-dominated
communication
industry. The participants made it clear that they were giving
interviews in
their personal capacity as they did not have permission from their
organisations to participate in the research. These interviews were
not
recorded, as the participants preferred informal interactions. The
researcher
took notes during the interviews and clarifications were sought
whenever needed
during the subsequent data analysis. These interviews allowed the
researcher to
gain insight into the differences and similarities between ad-less
digital
media and advertiser-subsidised mainstream media. The interview data
were
analysed using thematic coding (Flick 2009,
318-323).
One of the limitations of the article
is that it is a case study. As a result, it may not represent every
ad-less
digital news media organisation in India. Although it offers a
critical
understanding of structural patterns, use of technology and the
challenges
faced by a digital news media organisation trying to move away from
the
advertiser-subsidised business model, the analysis cannot be
extrapolated to
other digital news media organisations in India. Another limitation is
the lack
of data on readership and revenues of various digital news
organisations in the
country for comparison. Even the interview participants from Newslaundry
refused to share any data on
their readership and revenues.
5. Findings
and Discussion
5.1.
For-Profit
Company vs. Public
Service News
In interviews, the founders of Newslaundry
have stated that their
objective was to produce public-service journalism and that the
business model
of their for-profit organisation differs completely from that of the
traditional media, as it depends on public contributions for revenues.
A,[1]
co-founder of Newslaundry,
says that “when
the public pay, the public is served and when corporations pay
corporations are
served, or when the government pays, the government is served. Lot of
news
media just survives on government advertising, otherwise, they
wouldn’t be
around. It is patronage basically”.
The Newslaundry
founders are not against capitalism or markets. Their aim was to
disrupt the
market to create a new market. As A explained: “Markets are a reality
in the
world and they work in a lot of ways. They are flawed in a lot of ways
as well.
You have to be conscious of both. But anywhere in the world, if you
want to be
a disruptor and want to disrupt the entire structure of an industry,
you can’t
do it on the ground. You have to break the economic model for the
industry to
change”.
With only foundation grants at its disposal, A did not
think a non-profit model like a trust could disrupt the market or
change the
news model. He maintained that “[…] you have to incentivise the news.
You can
incentivise independent news media. You have to disrupt the market
using the
same tools offered by the market”. In the competitive world of news
media,
where Newslaundry aims to
take on The Times of India,
the founders feel
capital deployment is necessary to establish their venture. Published
in India,
The Times of India is the
largest
circulated English-language daily in the world. The co-founder of Newslaundry explained that
one has to
have a significant amount of capital to deploy in order to compete
with the
biggest in the market, and this cannot come from grants; stating that
“it is a
business and we are fine with corporate capital”. The founders of Newslaundry emphasised that
they were
selective about who they took money from. They did not encourage any
kind of
editorial interference from the corporate investors. The co-founder
said there
was a list of corporate investors they would not touch for fear of
editorial
interference.
This line of argument embodies what Fuchs (2014a,
56-57) calls “essentialism”, which does not see
phenomena as historical processes. The Newslaundry
founders believe that markets and capital are inescapable realities
that are
here to stay. McChesney (2010, 421) says
that
markets cannot effectively regulate media: “Competition in the market
forces
firms to give people what they want” as long as they can make profit.
M, another Newslaundry
founder, states that “[…] we chose this business model because we did
not want
to get influenced by advertisers. We believe Indians are willing to
pay for
their news”. D, an editor at Newslaundry,
says that journalism is expensive and readers are unaware about the
investment
required to compile a story: “It is an exhausting business. And, for
that
exhausting business, you pay Rs 3 or Rs 7 for 20 pages of ‘news’ that
is kind
of obscene”. D thinks news consumers should reflect on the kind of
news they
are getting and the kind of news they want. As Newslaundry targets English-speaking people, D believes
affordability is not a problem for its readers. These data show Newslaundry
considers news organisations
as business entities and readers as news consumers. As P, a mainstream
journalist, noted, there is no doubt that Newslaundry
is trying to do something different, although it is difficult to
predict
whether this model is sustainable or not: “You have to understand that
in our
country readers do not have the habit of paying for news. But the site
is still
dependent on corporate capital. Newslaundry
also sells its brand-related merchandise on its site like an
e-commerce site”.
Initially, content was completely free on the Newslaundry
site. A paywall for some
content was introduced in 2017. Newslaundry
plans to shift more content behind the paywall so that most of its
news is
accessible only to subscribers (Bansal 2016;
Shashidhar 2017). This new policy
structure
contrasts starkly to a statement made by one of the co-founders in an
article
on June 28, 2014, where he claimed that the site did not want to use a
paywall;
Newslaundry content should
be
available to young people, especially students, who would not be able
to pay.
This change in stance can be attributed to Newslaundry’s
effort
to become profitable as revealed by an editorial podcast on December
4,
2016 (NL Hafta 96). Although Newslaundry
does not disclose its exact revenues, NL Hafta 96 mentioned that the
company
had not yet broken even.
Splichal (2007, 255) states that “public
service
media must be a service of the public, by the public, and for
the
public”. Public service media (PSM) should be financed, controlled and
produced
by the public. Murdock (2018, 47) says that PSM should help keep
the online
space as a “universal public sphere” for open, democratic
deliberations. Fuchs and Sandoval
(2015, 171) say
that unlike capitalist media, public service media “reject the
for-profit imperative
and are not the private property of capitalists”. McChesney (2010,
147) lists the BBC as a striking example of a
non-commercial public service media. He also points out the need to
develop new
“forms and structures of non-profit, noncommercial” public media to
cater to
the pluralistic needs of the public.
Following these ideas, the researcher considers public
service media to have a not-for-profit, non-commercial character,
where readers
as citizens own and produce the media. However, in Newslaundry’s case its for-profit structure, private ownership and
subscriber-centric revenue model undermine its position as public
service
media. Its relationship with readers as consumers of news further
complicates
its position. In addition, Newslaundry’s
engagement
with its readers through third-party service providers indirectly
leads to the misuse of their personal information: this is explained
in the
following sections. Although it is an ad-less media form, Newslaundry is still a capitalist media that aims to challenge the
competition in the market place by replacing one business model with
another in
order to make money.
5.2.
Ownership,
Control and
Exploitation of Communication
Newslaundry launched
its digital news business because of the rising popularity of the
Internet and
the growing consumption of online content in India. Unlike traditional
big
media technology that prevented other types of business models from
functioning, the Internet, says A, “allowed us to try out a different
business
model”. Here, A is talking about the cost advantages the Internet can
offer.
Unlike traditional media such as print and broadcast, the resources
required to
start an online news organisation is very low. In addition, the
Internet makes
it possible to distribute news products for free and also provides
convenient
payment options. Another reason for Newslaundry’s
choice
of the digital medium was the nature of the Internet technology;
specifically, the fact that it does not allow for government
censorship. A
says: “You cannot censor the Internet, whereas you can censor a
broadcast. You
are using airwaves, which is a public property and which has to be
licensed”. M
pointed out that the use of the Internet in India is growing, with
more and
more people getting online. “Technology brings down the cost of news
production
and distribution, as a digital news media organisation does not have
to invest
in a printing press or distribution channels”.
However, contrary to the Newslaundry founders’ perception, technology can be controlled by
the government and powerful interests. The Indian government has
always tried
to control dissenting voices through draconian laws such as the
Information
Technology Act 2000 that have led to the arrest of many people,
including
teenagers, for their social media posts. The Supreme Court struck down
Section
66A of the Act in 2015 (Sriram 2015). A 2015
report
by the Indian news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) that came out
after the
court ruling suggests that the Indian government is working on
restoring
provisions in Section 66A to control people’s online activity in order
to
ensure national security. Governments in India – both the Centre and
states –
have previously shut down the Internet for political reasons. Indeed,
this is
almost a regular activity in conflict-ridden Kashmir. Many see these
shutdowns
as an effort by the government to silence people’s voices (Raha
2016; Saha 2017). In 2015, the Gujarat
state
government shut down the Internet to avoid an upturn in the Patel
community’s
protest movement for reservations (Johari 2015).
Haryana
state government had blocked Internet services during a protest by the
state’s Jat community (IANS 2016). India’s
telecom
regulator, in fact, allows for shutdowns. In the event of political
turmoil,
government authorities, mostly police, will ask Internet Service
Providers
(ISPs) to shut down citizens’ Internet access (Sushma
2018; Agarwal 2018). When there is a
total
Internet shutdown, people cannot access any digital media, including Newslaundry.
The
state
and central governments, powerful individuals and corporates in India
have
always used laws to control the media (India Today
2017).
Poorly-defined existing laws are sufficient to control the digital media
communication. A defence analyst/ journalist was arrested in Delhi in
October
2018 for posting a satirical Twitter video, while a woman in Kerala was
arrested in November for her Facebook post. Both were arrested for
“hurting
religious sentiments”. What complicates matters is that in both cases
courts
refused to come to their rescue: both people were sent to jail, as they
were
denied bail by the Indian Supreme Court and Kerala High Court
respectively (The
Wire 2018; Times of India
2018). When even sentences uttered in a seminar can
lead to
sedition charges in India (The
Hindu 2016),
it is almost impossible to expect the Internet and technological tools
to establish
a free media space.
Although the government has approved the
principle of net neutrality, TRAI recommendations are expected to
benefit large
companies like Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel (Pandey
2017). These are integrated operators, which own both telecom
infrastructure and content, and TRAI has decided to exempt content
delivery
networks from the regulation. Reliance is India’s largest company, and
it is
also one of the largest media owners in the country (Thakurta
2014). With significant telecom infrastructure under its
control, Reliance
is likely to attain an edge over others, especially small digital
media
companies like Newslaundry
that do
not own or control telecom infrastructure, suggesting the difference
between
access to the means of production and ownership of it (Andrejevic 2011, 97).
Technology, especially social media, plays a major role
in Newslaundry being
discovered by people,
as the media organisation depends on social media to market its
content to
attract readers. V, the head of technology at Newslaundry, considers social media like Facebook as more or less
equivalent to news media. He thinks social media offer a great
opportunity for
media houses:
If you take any news organisation, I am sure at least 50% of their leads or stories come from social media, and half of their readers are social media users. There is no denial there. That is the platform and everything runs on top of it.
As A says, “[…]
we use social media to attract visitors. We
boost stuff on Facebook”. As of May 2016, Newslaundry
did not use any technological tools to enhance its presence on
social media.
“Our growth has been organic so far. We will now be using all other
technological tools. But we cannot reveal our data analytics”, says
A. However,
Newslaundry does not have
any plans
to host Google advertisements. It also will not enter into
revenue-sharing
agreements with social media like YouTube for its content, because,
as A says,
“that is not our model”.
Newslaundry founders did not rule out the possibility of tracking
users to expand its reader base. “We do
not track
the visitor profiles. Not yet. But that does not mean we never will,” says A. Currently,
under its
privacy policy, the organisation states that it uses a tool called
MixPanel to
collect users’ personal information, such as name, email address,
region and so
on, to customise content and optimise its distribution. While Newslaundry guarantees
not to share the
collected information with any party, it states that “Newslaundry is neither responsible nor controls how other platforms
and tools treat the data they collect”. Although it states that
MixPanel does
not share personal information with any party, the site is silent
about its use
of social media and a particular comment management platform.
Considering that Newslaundry’s
use of the latter two
tools is extensive, this omission suggests that it does not employ
any specific
privacy protection tools for social media use. Even during the
interviews, none
of the interviewees talked about the privacy of social media users
or the Newslaundry
readers, or the exploitation
of user data by social media platforms like Facebook. This further
suggests that
they have not considered the
need for an alternative, commons-based public service social media.
In fact, in late
2016 Newslaundry launched
its social influencer campaign, which encouraged
users to share their online activities in exchange for gifts and
free
merchandise, thereby generating large amount of user data for itself
and for
social media corporations.
Interviewees’
perceptions about the use of social media suggest that Newslaundry is part of “communicative capitalism” (Dean
2010, 4-5), which relies on the exploitation of communication. Newslaundry uses social
media platforms
like Facebook to market its content in order to attract audiences as
well as
sell its merchandise. It regularly posts news content and links on
social media
for this purpose. This process creates new networks of
communication, where
readers are engaged in enjoyment and production. But their
communications are
also being monitored and exploited by companies. While Newslaundry uses readers’ personal communication to market its
content, social media companies gain from users’ unpaid labour,
where readers
are engaged in producing content (Fuchs 2010, 191).
Social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube offer free space to users and media firms like Newslaundry as these organisations produce content that helps social media firms to expand their communication networks. The enormous amounts of personal data created on these platforms are monitored, collected and used for generating profit by social media platforms and data-mining companies. Social media companies allow third parties to access these data through Applications Programming Interfaces (APIs) for a fee: public and open APIs are a rarity in the commodified system. However, exceptions are there, as Twitter, for instance, offers three public APIs in addition to its premium offering. Facebook also used to allow third-party apps to access the data of the friends of app users. It is this facility that was misused by data consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica to collect information from millions of users (Bastos and Walker 2018).
India has the highest number of Facebook users in
the world, and user behaviour on the Facebook website and Newslaundry’s social media page can reveal not only their personal
preferences but also their political affiliations. This in turn can
be used by
political parties for their advantage. In fact, the ruling right
wing Bharatiya
Janata Party and opposition Congress along with various regional
parties had
previously used the services of Cambridge Analytica in elections (Verniers
and
Hangal 2018; Kumar 2018).
In
other words, user
behaviour on various social media platforms make them susceptible to
manipulated news feed, including fake news, and Newslaundry inadvertently plays a role in this exploitation.
However, Newslaundry is not
alone in
this process: every media firm and organisation with a social media
page that
does not employ privacy protection tools generates user data that can
be
harvested by social media platforms and their partner companies for
profits.
Using the psychoanalytic notion of fetishism, Dean (2010,
5)
remarks that “ideology is what we do, even when we know better”; it is
this
ideology that drives users of social media to continue to do what they
do even
though they know companies collect their personal data.
5.3.
Participation
vs.
Participatory Democracy
All the interview participants
emphasised the potential of Internet technology to democratise the
news space.
M asserted that everything about technology is democratic, as it
offers
immediate feedback and readers’ reactions. All participants agreed
that users
were gaining more control over news production due to interactive
technology. While all the Newslaundry
interviewees were optimistic about the interactive nature and
democratic
potential of the digital medium, my analysis suggests that content
production
is still completely under the producers’ control.
“Comments have
made me introspect all the time. I go through comments regularly. I
take
audience reaction seriously. But I never feel compelled to write in
a particular
way to be accepted by the audience”, says P, an editorial staff
member. D feels
that the democratic potential of the Internet helped one to be a
better writer.
At the same time, she adds: “I don’t go through the comments because
in my
experience someone who is going to give a reasoned comment will
email me or get
in touch with me in person. So, someone who is sort of typing in the
comments
section, I think they are doing that to get a little bit of
attention for
themselves”.
P
says that the real-time engagement has given users more power: “There is definitely
democratic
potential. We are closer to the readers now with technology. It
also keeps you
on your toes”. However, she does not think producers are losing
control. As she
explains: “It is not like you can write anything you want to.
There will be
checks in place. Yes, here checks can happen at boss’ side and
readers’ side.
But I don’t think that has affected the control. We are careful
that way.
Pleasing people is a very tough thing to do”.
AM, a contributor
to digital news media organisations, says he never felt compelled to
look back
or change his writing style based on feedback: “Anybody pointing out
factual
errors, I correct it”. He points out that he has not come across
editors
looking at comments sections and changing their news style or news
reports, but
adds that “it does not mean editors are not doing it”. He reveals
that when he
started writing for media he used to engage with readers, but this
has changed:
“Now I have just quit it. I feel so much commentary going on that
you feel let
it be”.
Another unintended
consequence of feedback sections seems to be that journalists’ and
editors’
fearlessness has been compromised. A says that “journalists now fear
of [sic]
not being popular”. But overall, he felt the interactive potential
of the
Internet to be a good thing because it tells the journalist or
editor where
s/he stands. Newslaundry
does not make content based on readers’ feedback. “You have to
serve the
public but not anyone in particular”, says A. He believes that there
are
certain kinds of people who pay for independent media: “The people
who pay for
good content do it because it is good and not because you are toeing
their
line. And those are the people who we target”.
Newslaundry considers
ideology-based
payments as something too dangerous to pursue: “You never
know which way it
will go, because in our organisation, we have all sorts of
ideological
positions”.
These statements are fraught with contradictions. Despite
positioning itself as a public service news provider, Newslaundry does not take into consideration readers’ feedback for
content production. It is still the producers who decide what
“good content”
is. On the one hand, Newslaundry
journalists are of the opinion that the Internet has
democratised the media
space and that comments have made them introspect, and on the
other, they are
not willing to interact actively with the readers. Going by
their statements,
the Internet’s democratic potential stems from its “interactive
nature”. Fuchs
(2014a,
65) states that “an
Internet dominated by corporations that accumulate capital by
exploiting and
commodifying users” can never be considered as participatory
democracy.
Extending Carpentier’s political concept of participatory
democracy (quoted in
Fuchs (2014a, 56)) that conceives
of participation as equal power relations in decision-making
processes, Fuchs
says that a truly participatory media democracy must also be an
ownership
democracy. In this sense, Newslaundry
does not create a space for participatory democracy, as it
supplies audience
commodity to social media corporations, as demonstrated in the
previous
section. Newslaundry’s
readers are
neither involved in decision-making processes, nor do they own
Internet-related
resources. As Herman (1995, 215) says, in a
democratic media “the users would determine their own needs and
fix the menu of
choices either directly or through their closely controlled
agents”.
Furthermore, the
interaction space Newslaundry
provides through its comments section is mediated by capital. Newslaundry does not
allow anonymous
comments. “One has to use either social media login or the
Disqus platform to
post comments. This greatly compromises users’ privacy and
exposes them to
targeted advertising by the US-based company Disqus. Readers can
of course read
Disqus’ policies through a link on the site. Mainstream media
encourages social
media login for comments, but that is not mandatory”, says T, a
journalist with
a leading daily. Disqus’ revenue
model is not markedly different from those of free social
media platforms. The
company tracks and collects user data from sites that use its
commenting
system: “It
follows a user’s
activities across sites that use Disqus, even if the user is
logged out” (Couts 2012). On the Disqus site under “Privacy
Policy”, the company makes it clear that it uses cookies to
collect information
about users and that it shares personally-identifiable information
and
encrypted email addresses with third-party business partners and
agents. By
using Disqus’ service, Newslaundry
becomes
its partner and a supplier of users as a commodity to the US-based
company. While Newslaundry
does not receive any revenue from advertisers, it helps
generate advertising revenue for transnational monopolies like
Google,
Facebook, Twitter and Disqus, and becomes their partner in this
process.
Apart from profit
accumulation by corporations, surveillance and compromises on users’
privacy of
this kind have larger political implications. Although the Indian
Supreme Court
has declared privacy a fundamental right (Mittal 2017), in the case of state overreach it has pointed out the
need to maintain a balance between individual rights and “legitimate
concerns
of the state”. In addition, establishing jurisdiction over data
collected by
US-based companies with data servers across the globe is a major
challenge. A Philadelphia
court has ruled that the US
authorities have the right to access data from American Internet
companies,
even if they are stored on foreign servers. This suggests that
personal data on
Facebook, Twitter, Google and Disqus will be open to surveillance by
the US
authorities (Bershidsky 2017).
6.
Conclusion
The study has shown how multiple factors undermine the
potential of Newslaundry
to function
as a public service news provider. This analysis is in line with the
arguments
of Murdock (2018), Splichal (2007), McChesney (2010) and Fuchs and
Sandoval (2015) as the
organisation’s for-profit, privately-owned structure and the nature
of its
engagement with its audience makes Newslaundry
a capitalist media form. However, what complicates such an analysis
is the
conditions under which the media system operates in India. The
country lacks an
independent non-profit public service media. Its public broadcasting
entities
are not only funded but also controlled by the government. Private
media in
India is almost totally dependent on advertising revenues from
private corporations
and state and central governments. The media in general are also
vulnerable to
defamation suits and government control. These factors limit the
potential of
the Internet and Newslaundry
to
establish the “digital commons” as envisaged by Murdock (2018,
50). Therefore, the study takes a critical position that
acknowledges the potential of Newslaundry
to challenge the existing media in the country by making an effort
to offer an
alternative media space that is not influenced by recurring revenues
from the
government or corporate advertisers. At the same time, the analysis
challenges Newslaundry’s
claims of being a public
service news provider by pointing out the limitations of its
capitalist
structure.
Newslaundry’s subscription-centric revenue model
requires constant marketing of its content through social media. Newslaundry’s use of social
media is
different from that of a public service media like the BBC, as Newslaundry
has to attract more readers
and turn them into subscribers to gain revenues and make a profit.
As a result,
news attains a commodity form. As a public-owned and funded
broadcaster, the
BBC does not have to sell news to make a profit. Newslaundry’s production process and its engagement with the
audience
also produce the user/audience commodity. However, as an ad-less
media model, Newslaundry
does not sell this commodity
and the audience commodity does not play any role in its capital
accumulation
process. Figure 1 represents the capital accumulation process of Newslaundry and Figure 2 is
that of
ad-financed companies like social media and Disqus.
In these figures Lp is labour power and Mp is the means
of production, which include infrastructure and technology.
Newslaundry’s
production process creates two commodities – news (C1')
and audience
(C2'). As labour power adds value to the commodity, C1'=
C+∆C.
Newslaundry indirectly
passes on this audience commodity to its social media partners and
comment
management platform, thereby becoming part of the capital
accumulation process
of the ad-financed media corporations. As Fuchs (2015,
145-150) says, in the case of ad-financed corporations, labour
power includes paid labour (V1) as well as unpaid labour (V2) and Newslaundry’s audience
commodity becomes
part of this V2 along with other users of social media.
The present
researcher therefore argues that Newslaundry
functions like a consumer goods company, wherein it gains the
majority of its
revenues by directly selling news and its capital accumulation
process, close
to what Marx (1893,
28-30) suggests. However, the user commodity it supplies
enters the capital accumulation circuit of social media,
contributing to their
profit. Considering that Newslaundry
has not yet started making any profit (M' is not ≥ M), the major
beneficiaries of this entire accumulation process are social media
corporations.
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About the Author
Sreekala Girija
Sreekala Girija is a doctoral student in the Department of Communication at the University of Hyderabad in India. Her research interests include critical theory, political economy of media, technology and society. Her current research focuses on Internet-based journalism start-ups in India and their potential to democratise media space in India.