The Content, Audiences and Revenue Model of Digital-Only News Platforms in Jharkhand

Technology has always been crucial in transforming journalism. The digital revolution is the latest one causing deeper and long-lasting impacts on the nature and practices of journalism. During the last decade, hundreds of digital-only news platforms have mushroomed all over India creating altogether a new independent space for journalism by challenging the dominance of legacy news media. This chapter explores this new trend with a focus on the content, audiences, technology and revenue sources of stand-alone digital news portals in the context of Jharkhand. Deeper insights gathered through interviews with digital entrepreneurs and journalists revealed that though evolved in a very haphazard manner, digital platforms present a new form of journalism based on a participatory and viewership-based content generation and revenue model. The mobile revolution has made its way to the remotest rural audiences who have enormous information needs and new emerging digital news platforms are catering to it. Despite the initial stage of financial instability, these digital platforms would eventually be able to generate more revenue by winning the trust of local advertisers in the near future proportionately to their capabilities of engagement with their audiences. And eventually, the issues related to credibility and quality of content would also be resolved.