The Search for Lost Voice: Building Identities and the Impact of Journalists in a Viral World

The news media landscape is evolving worldwide, thanks to various factors, such as market interventions, the changing political economy, integration of emerging communication technologies and the like. The economic and regulatory pressures on news media are becoming more visible in contemporary times with a majority of journalism organisations shifting from public service models to market models (Livingstone, & Lunt, 1994). Indian journalism, particularly, is witnessing its best times in terms of the vastness of viewership and readership and is also going through its worst phase with the ethical foundations plummeting drastically and with advertising dominating everything (Lloyd, 2013). In the World Press Freedom Index 2021, India ranked 142 out of 180 countries surveyed as compared to 2002 when India ranked 80 out of 139 countries (Gopalakrishnan, 2018, April 26). Indian journalists say they feel intimidated, ostracised if they are critical of political parties and policies. U.S. Retrieved November 2, 2022, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-politics-media-analysis-idUSKBN1HX1F4 ). These developments are bound to affect the nature of duties journalists perform in their newsrooms some of which may include losing their critical voices. This chapter intends to analyse Indian journalists’ use of social media and the relational gratification that they draw from their direct public engagement vis-à-vis their functions in the newsrooms. It will also examine the identities they form for themselves through their social media usage and the impact of such engagements in the virtual, as well as physical, world in the light of the virality of their social media posts. Methodologically, the article builds on the formal and informal interactions with select journalists and reviews of their social media posts along with the subsequent user engagement with these posts.