Abstract
Per Ståhlberg’s Writing Society through Media: Ethnography of a Hindi Daily has opened the field for sociologists of news/journalism in India. Although this detailed ethnographic study of a newspaper, Dainik Jagran, conducted in the later part of the 1990s, was available outside India, now this revised edition has made it available to scholars in the country.
Since the publication of Robin Jeffery’s path-breaking study of the newspaper revolution in India, there has been a growing interest in the study of Indian-language news media. The later part of the 1990s was a compelling time to be an ethnographer of news in India. This was the period when we saw the rise of Hindi-language newspapers as a factor in the social and political changes taking place in north India.
Ståhlberg’s study of newsroom culture, routines, beat systems and the macrostructure of news layout, described in the book with the use of a metaphor, ‘cartography of news’, in the context of the Lucknow edition of Dainik Jagran has filled the gap in our understanding of how news organisations and newsrooms work in north India. Ståhlberg writes, ‘By focusing on an occupation that describes—but is simultaneously inscribed—contemporary Indian society, I am attempting to discuss a professional practice in relation to processes of cultural globalization, modernity and political imagination’ (p. 21). He shows compellingly how news media, in this case Dainik Jagran, and the beat reporters working for the newspaper, on a daily basis, negotiated fragments of society in Lucknow and over a period of time socially constructed a representation of the city and state on pages of the newspaper.
Even though India has the largest and most diverse, relatively free news media, interest among scholars in the field of sociology of news in the country, until now, was limited. The bulk of the early research in the sociology of news was done in the United States and Britain. The studies by Ståhlberg and others, mentioned in the introduction to the book, have made valuable contributions to the field that, until recently, was dominated by Eurocentric/American understandings and explanations.
Since the early days of research into the relationship between the press and society, sociologists have paid special attention to relationships of individual journalists to news organisations and news organisations to society. Some of the early sociologists of news media such as Robert Park, Warren Breed and David White were especially interested in understanding how social control was fostered inside the newsrooms of mainstream newspapers. The work of the pioneers laid the foundations for a research programme on news work—its routines, beat systems and rules of professional practice.
Later studies in the sociology of news/journalism showed that news organisations had evolved into institutions with routines, rules and norms that shaped their occupational behaviour and production with surprising similarities. The detailed newsroom studies by Gaye Tuchman, Philip Schlesinger and Mark Fishman showed how news, like any other industrial product, was manufactured and socially constructed.
Ethnographic work done by Herbert Gans inside American news organisations showed how the world view of journalists is shaped by the norms in which they are socialised, and also the dominant ideology of the middle class—a class to which they themselves belong and the class for which they produce the news for daily consumption. The classic study of the British Broadcasting Corporation by Tom Burns showed how the news work inside the national public broadcaster and its organisational structure shaped the public imagination of an entire nation.
Similarly, Ståhlberg presents a thick description of the Dainik Jagran newsroom in Hazrat Ganj, Lucknow. He writes, making keen observations like,
Sub-editors spent their whole working day here except for an occasional stroll out to the Hazrat Ganj market. For reporters it was a place where they started their working day, coordinated their activities and where they returned at the end of the day to file their stories (p. 134).
By learning how the newsroom was organised, the workflow and routines of the staff, we learn about the hierarchical structure that is embedded in the beat system and daily routines of the editors and reporters. Despite the hierarchy we learn that everyone at the paper wants to be a beat reporter, mostly because of the small perks and connections a reporter can make with important and powerful people in a city’s bureaucracy and politics.
The growing importance of the Indian-language news media, more specifically Hindi in north India, has changed the political field and relationship of politicians, government official and political parties with journalists of vernacular news media. This, in a way, has also empowered the non-English speaking middle classes. Ståhlberg shows how politicians in Lucknow were more interested in reaching out to reporters of Indian-language newspapers such as Dainik Jagran. They knew this was an effective medium with which to influence the overwhelming sections of society who do not read English-language newspapers. And even advertisers were aware of the growing influence of the Hindi press in north India. One of the advantages of relying on journalists of the Indian-language press was that they often came from similar social backgrounds as their readers. The literature on news suggests that the news values flow in the same direction as the news flow. However, in a way, the news food chain flowed from the Indian-language press in the hinterland to the English-language press in metropolitan cities, whereas, professional values and norms of journalism flowed in the reverse direction, that is, from the English-language press to the Indian-language press.
Ståhlberg’s ethnographic study of Dainik Jagran in Lucknow is a major milestone in advancing media studies in South Asia. One of the major problems with news media studies has been that these studies are quick to engage in normative analysis, especially from the perspective of manipulation and propaganda, but there are a few studies that have attempted to understand and explain the socio-cultural processes in the function and organising of news media. Normative analysis must follow the understanding and explanation of socio-cultural processes at work in the news media from the perspective of occupation, organisation and political institution in a democratic society with a relatively free press. Relative to normative analysis, this sort of study often requires more time and effort. We need more studies on sociological processes behind news production and consumption. This is what makes Ståhlberg’s work significant. I hope this will spur more research in understanding social, political and economic processes rather than normative commentaries that often become a substitute for research.
The value of this work is not diminished despite a looming presence of 24/7 news television in the Indian public spheres and the growing penetration of social media. News television has emerged as the most important source of political news, but most Indians still get most of their news about events and developments in their locality from the newspaper, which is also substantiated by the still-growing circulation of newspapers.