Towards a taxonomy of English-language news podcasting in India

Abstract

News podcasting has emerged as an active domain of academic research in recent years, and yet several regions like India remain understudied in terms of empirical knowledge about the content of news podcasts. This research article partially fills this gap by introducing a taxonomy of Indian news podcasts. Using the Newman & Gallo framework (2019) for analysis, this study looks at a data set of 6462 English-language news podcast episodes from India and lays out a taxonomic classification. This taxonomic classification illustrates the diversity in frequency, formats, and beats found in English-language news podcasts from India. In line with the global trends, the deep dive formats and interviews are featured prominently on Indian podcasts too. In a seemingly counterintuitive way, though, the Indian legacy news organizations emerge to be far more active in podcasting compared to their digital-only counterparts. The findings are discussed in light of questions of journalistic legitimacy, credibility, organizational branding, and India-specific factors like the tremendous audience diversity. The research attempts a region-specific epistemological engagement with the domain of news podcasting and makes a significant contribution by presenting a tool and a provocation for further research following this inquiry.

Keywords:

• Digital journalism
• news podcasting
• podcast journalism
• taxonomy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sneha Gore Mehendale

Sneha Gore Mehendale is a journalist-turned-journalism educator and currently works as an Assistant Professor at Symbiosis International University, Pune, India. Her doctoral research is on news podcasting and she also maintains research interest in digital journalism, media laws and ethics and media and mental health. Sneha is also a Google News Initiative certified news verification trainer.