The current news media ecosystem in India can be divided into two groups: legacy media and digital media. The former dominate TV space, while the latter operate primarily on the web and social media. Recent literature has posited potential differences in journalistic standards and content objectivity between these two categories, but these assertions lack robust empirical validation. To address this research gap, we analyzed the characteristics of news content and user engagement on YouTube. We collected 1074 news videos uploaded by the two types of media on YouTube, along with more than 400,000 comments. Using network and text analysis, we found that users form two highly polarized groups with minimal interaction between them, suggesting the presence of echo chambers. Furthermore, toxicity analysis shows that digital media hosted more hateful and toxic comments than legacy media. Our findings suggest complex dynamics in the Indian media ecosystem, potentially influenced by factors such as ownership structures, content strategies, and audience segmentation. The results indicate potential correlations between corporate ownership models and alignment of content with governmental narratives in legacy media, while digital media demonstrates a trend toward content diversification.
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Ghasiya et al. (2024) studied this question.
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