India is a primarily mobile-focused market, with 72 percent getting news through smartphones and only 35 percent using laptops. News aggregator websites and apps such as Google News (53 percent ), Daily Hunt (25 percent ), Inshorts (19 percent ), and NewsPoint (17 percent ) have become an important means to access news and are valued for convenience. A substantial proportion of Indian consumers use social media apps such as YouTube (53 percent ) and WhatsApp (51 percent ) for getting news, according to findings from a survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. India is a primarily mobile-focused market, with 72 percent getting news through smartphones and only 35 percent using laptops. Further, the digital market saw an overall growth of 29 percent in 2021, with advertising and subscription revenues expanding at 29 percent apiece. Overall, 60 percent of consumers share news via social media, messaging, or email.
These findings are based on a study of predominantly English-speaking, online news users in India – a small sample of a larger, more diversified, media market, the research adds. Respondents are often more affluent, younger, have higher levels of formal education, more likely to India. Online news sources continue to be the first choice for 84 percent of respondents, while social media accounts for 63 percent on its own, television is still an option for 59 percent of respondents, and print remains the preferred source for 49 percent of respondents. 15% of people access news on tablets in addition to smartphones and laptops.
According to the report, policy-makers are concerned about the growth of social media because these platforms are also full of erroneous information, constant trolling, and abuse. For propagating false material that threatened the nation’s “national security” and “international relations,” the government suspended multiple YouTube news stations in April of this year. The prohibition was implemented under the most recent IT regulations, which were created in February 2021 and are currently being contested by both news publishers and social media companies. A legal firm under investigation is the subject of Sequoia’s peculiar warning letter. According to the analysis, traditional print brands and public broadcasters continue to enjoy high levels of confidence from survey respondents, but 24-hour television news channels and more recent digital-born businesses are less trusted. Consumers see the media to be independent of unauthorized political or governmental influence in 36 percent of cases, and 35 percent of cases, from unauthorized economic or commercial influence in cases.
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