Coverage of the Surgical Strike on Television News in India |
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| Authors: | Sushmita Pandit Saayan Chattopadhyay |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Media Studies, Future Media School, Indiamail.sushmitapandit@gmail.com;3. Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Baruipur College, India. E-mail: saayanchattopadhyay@gmail.com |
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| Abstract: | On 29 September 2016, the Indian army conducted a surgical strike along the India–Pakistan border. The mainstream news media in India followed the event with assertive nationalistic rhetoric. What was supposed to be a covert military operation against terrorism became morphed into political rhetoric aggravated by the unwarranted jingoism of television news channels and social media. The coverage of the strike on television news is typically characterized by a confluence of militant nationalist discourses, and the ideologically imbued labelling of specific communities. Within this context, drawing from the close reading of the coverage, this article analyses how Indian television news sustains the construction of a fictive “we”, conflated with the government policies and military strategies, and speaks for a supposedly homogeneous national consensus that also consciously obscures the dissent through minority voices. The article emphasizes the relationship between communities, formal politics, and the supposedly non-political spaces and practices of news media in India. |
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| Keywords: | Aaj Tak hindutva India–Pakistan conflict nationalism television news surgical strike military Times Now |
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