Making news in India: star news and Star Ananda

Abstract

Batabyal’s work is a timely addition to the scantly researched area of newsroom ethnography. Focussing on two Murdoch-owned Indian television channels, Star News and Star Ananda, it probes into the complexities of newsroom practices, and how such practices impact the kind of content that is generated. Comprising of six chapters, excluding an introduction and con-clusion, the study engages with key themes such as the interplay of corporate-editorial decision in news making, the production of ratings driven news content, targeting the constituency of affluent news consumers and the adoption of an ethnographic approach to understand these vital themes and help in the construction of a more grounded media theory.