As social media picks up, newspaper readers 'decline' from 29 to 18% in 5 yrs: Report

By A Representative

A new report, “Social Media & Political Behaviour” by Lokniti – Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, has revealed that the rise of social media platforms in India in the recent past “has been accompanied by a steady decline of traditional media over the years”, including newspapers and TV.
According to the report, “In 2014, 29 percent of voters had said that they read newspapers daily. In 2019, this figure declined to 18 percent in our survey. Similarly, the proportion of those watching TV news daily has declined from 46 percent in 2014 to 35 percent now.”
On the other hand, the report states, “The use of social media among voters in India has grown by leaps and bounds”, pointing out, “Back in 2014, merely one of every ten voters (9%) was found to be using Facebook”, but this figure doubled “to 20 percent by 2017, and then increasing further to 32 percent during the recent 2019 Lok Sabha elections”.
Similarly, the usage of WhatsApp which was 22 percent in 2017 and “has now increased to 34 percent”, the report says, adding, “The only other social media platform that currently matches the popularity of Facebook and WhatsApp in India is YouTube”, which is used by nearly 31% of the respondents. Then, Instagram is being used by 15%, and Twitter 12% voters, “a six-fold increase in the last five years”.

Comments

The farmer's burden: How oil, war, and climate are rewriting the price of food

By Vikas Meshram The scorching flames of the Middle East conflict are now slowly reaching the kitchens of ordinary people. The true price of this war is paid in daily markets, vegetable shops, and in the shattered minds of farmers. Expensive crude oil, skyrocketing fertilizer prices, and rising agricultural costs are together creating the conditions for global food inflation — and this crisis is directly tied to what people eat and drink every day.

India's nuclear euphoria: The hard economics policymakers ignore

By Shankar Sharma* There is a sort of newfound euphoria sweeping India with respect to nuclear power — and in particular, Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). In political speeches, policy documents, and newspaper editorials, the word "nuclear" has acquired a fresh, almost romantic glow, as though a technology once synonymous with catastrophe at Chernobyl and Fukushima has been quietly reinvented. To be sure, the challenges of climate change and India's growing electricity demand are real and urgent. But enthusiasm is not a substitute for analysis. A hard look at the global evidence, the domestic cost picture, and the practical hurdles of nuclear deployment raises questions that this national conversation urgently needs to confront.

Beyond the 'silent relocation' narrative in Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts

By Dr. Mohammad Asaduzzaman* In recent years, a narrative has emerged from the rugged and forested terrain of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), portraying the region as the site of a “silent relocation” — a mass forced migration of Bangladesh’s non-Muslim ethnic communities into neighboring India and Myanmar.

Counterview

Search This Blog