If you’re an affluent, educated man in India getting your news from the Internet, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re widely getting your news from NDTV or The Times of India, you’re worried about agenda-driven news, and you’re probably open to the idea of paying for news from a source you trust.

Or at least these are some of the broad findings from the India Digital News Report brought out by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) at the University of Oxford. Covering 1,013 responses gathered online—thus the “skewed towards male, affluent, and educated respondents” bit—it’s a limited snapshot into which platforms users trust (and the ones they aren’t too sure about), and just how much the political leanings of various platforms come into play.

Kicking off with brands respondents trust, the study makes two things clear: the overall trust in news is low, and digital platforms of legacy media houses enjoy greater readership and trust—in relative terms. NDTV (56 per cent offline, 47 per cent online) leads the way followed by The Times of India (46 per cent offline, 40 per cent online) when it comes to usage compared to other brands. Hindustan Times, The Hindu and The Indian Express can also pat themselves on the back since they’re among other legacy brands in the top 10 news websites by reach.

Source: The RISJ report.

While NDTV was quick to celebrate these statistics, claiming that it was “miles ahead of the competition”, the report reveals that when it came to trust reposed in news brands, the organisation was surpassed by The Times of India, Doordarshan and Hindustan Times. OpIndia—described euphemistically as a “partisan” news website in the study—scored the least on the trust scale. A graph in the report pointed out that BJP supporters trust NDTV more than they trust OpIndia.

Source: The RISJ report.

While many new media portals like Firstpost and The Wire made it along with legacy media organisations, the report also pointed out the popularity enjoyed by “alternative” and “partisan” news websites like The Logical Indian, OneIndia.com and IndiaFacts.org. But it called them exceptions to the limited reach of most of these sites: “Our research shows that, despite their increased visibility and sometimes highly motivated and vocal audiences, most of these publishers have only a relatively limited and small audience. Few of our respondents are even aware of most of these sites, and even fewer say they have actually accessed them in the last week.”

Talking politics on the web and the fear of fake news

But how comfortable is our affluent, educated male when it comes to professing his politics online? Not very. Half of the respondents said they do worry that friends, family and colleagues will “think differently of them” due to their political views expressed on the Internet. Meanwhile, 55 per cent worry it could get them into trouble with authorities.

The report claims that these results are at par with statistical conclusions derived by the RISJ in countries like Brazil and Turkey, and greater than those arrived at in the US. It attempts to explain these results, although non-conclusively: “These high levels of concern could be based in part on recent events in India. Since 2012 at least 17 people have been arrested for posting material that was considered offensive or threatening to a politician. Arrests have included people speaking out against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and more recently, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.” The study also states that those with “partisan” political sympathies tend to express greater concern overall than “nonpartisans”.

Half the respondents are also worried about “fake news”—they admit they’re concerned about news that drives a particular agenda, politically- and commercially-powered false news, and poor journalism (which includes factual errors, clickbait and misleading headlines). This isn’t limited to one political group, though. The respondents are classified into three broad groups—pro-BJP (500) pro-UPA (280) and “non-partisan” (232)—and this worry about disinformation is equally distributed.

Source: The RISJ report.

In contrast to 44 per cent of Americans, 64 per cent of Indians prefer that the government resolves the problem of disinformation on digital platforms. An equal percentage of Indians would also like publishers (the news sites) and platforms (such as Facebook and Google) to shoulder the burden of curbing this phenomenon.

Alternative news models

So how keen is our respondent on paying for online news? It isn’t all bleak; 31 per cent admit they’re “somewhat likely” to do so while nine per cent are “very likely”—definitely a greater disposition to do so than the US. Ten per cent “strongly agreed” they would donate to a news organisation if they were “unable to cover their costs in other ways, suggesting significant potential for growing donation-based models”.

It should be pointed out that the report erroneously described Newslaundry as operating on a “donation model”, when in fact it should have been a “subscription-based model”, where paying subscribers enjoy special access to a variety of content.

Source: The RISJ report.

The report also stresses the risk of excessively depending on advertising: “In an increasingly competitive market for online advertising, where audiences are embracing ad-blocking, and where advertisers often opt for the cheap, targeted options provided by large platform companies, Indian publishers’ reliance on advertising puts them at risk. Some are reconsidering their strategy and business models and have been experimenting with new pay models, some of them subscription based.”

Source: The RISJ report.

Overall, the report manages to capture the rapidly changing landscape of news consumption in India. Given that it’s the very first report of its kind, a decipherable pattern will only emerge upon the publication of several such editions in the coming years. However, the study does warn that with the movement of news consumers towards Internet platforms, digital advertising in the coming years will shift away from publishers, inevitably setting them on a search for a more sustainable news model.

About the survey

The study is part of the institute’s annual Digital News Report series which began in 2012 and covers the dynamics of online information across multiple countries.

Over the years, RISJ’s Digital News Report series has covered more than 36 countries including the US, the UK, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and South Korea. India has been conspicuously absent in the series, until this dedicated report. The study is sponsored by The Hindu, The Indian Express, Press Trust of India and The Quint. The survey has been conducted by YouGov, a research and data analytics firm headquartered in the UK.

The primary function of the report is to “track activities and changes within the digital space—as well as gaining understanding about how offline media and online media are used together”. Empirically based on 1,013 responses gathered through an online questionnaire, it is admittedly “reflective of the English-speaking population in India that has access to the internet”, and is, therefore “skewed towards male, affluent, and educated respondents”.