Brittni Woodland

Sept. 4, 2014
Mass Comm. 226
Professor Meader

Social media's impact on journalism: A study of media's coverage of anti-corruption

protests in India.

ABSTRACT
The India Against Corruption protests of 2011 rocked not only the personal lives of
the Indian population, but the news and social media world as well. This article
outlines how the use of mobile and social media platforms, as well as educated
middle class, influenced the mainstream medias coverage of what was coined the
Anna movement (after Anna Hazare, an avid campaigner of the cause) . Intermedia agenda setting discourse serves as the base concept to the motive of Indias
media coverage of this movement. The findings discuss this theory and the impact
the Indian news media had on such a critical time in Indian history.

LITERATURE REVIEW
In the case of the protests, the authors utilized the agenda setting theory as their
primary theory. This theory states that media coverage, by providing the public
with cues about the significance of various political issues, exerts a strong influence
on the relative importance the public attaches to these issues. This theory has also
grown to include four other components: attribute agenda setting, need for
orientation, emphasis on how the medias agenda is shaped and inter-media
agenda setting (an explanation for the sharing of news agenda among different
media).
Previous literature in this line of research focused on relationships between national
news agencies and daily papers. In past research, a rather high correlation was

found in topic agendas between newspapers in their coverage of state legislature.

(Atwater, Fico & Pizante, 1987). The New York Times had also been identified at one
point as an agenda setter for the international news agenda of three leading
American evening newscasts. More recent studies also showed that traditional
news media heavily influences the agenda of blogs. Consequently, it was also noted
that very influential blogs even set some of the agendas for traditional news media.
The theoretical argument from the authors was that without all these social media
and Indian middle class influences, this Anna movement would not have been as
widespread as it was. Without all of this coverage and hype surrounding the cause,
these protests may not have had as much of an impact as they did and people may
not have felt as empowered as they did. The argument suggests that the media
coverage set the agenda for the movement. Though the Anna movement already
had motive and cause to fight, without this agenda, the movement may not have
had as much direction.
The authors made their various predictions based on the past research in reference
to the correlation of agenda setting and media coverage of public issues. Some of
their predictions also stemmed from observing the initial flow of the movement and
how people reacted because they witnessed coverage of the movement. The
popularity and attention that the issue garnered on social media like Facebook,
YouTube and Twitter also fueled the hypotheses the authors implicated.

CONCLUSION
Based on several surveys after the matter, it was proved that media could help
stimulate people to act for cause. More than three-fourths of the younger Indian
population felt that social media acts as an aid to empower them to bring change
into the world. As it pertains to the argument or hypothesis that social media
influenced a movement, the authors were essentially right. As far as unsupported
hypotheses, there is still some debate as to whether or not this Anna movement
was created because of the media coverage or if it already existed and the
coverage itself only amplified the movement. In addition, findings also showed that
the media clued into what their consumers (middle class) cared most about and
how to best to make what matters to them appeal to figures in power.

Works Cited
Rodrigues, U. (2014). Social media's impact on journalism: A study of media's
coverage of anti-corruption protests in India. <i>Global Media Journal: Australian
Edition., Volume 8. Issue (1), 1-10. Retrieved September 3, 2014, from http://0eds.b.ebscohost.com.library.winthrop.edu/ehost/detail/detail?
vid=12&sid=765b15b1-16f6-4f1c-83548b7360f352a0@sessionmgr113&hid=101&bdata=#db=ufh&AN=96272072