Indian Media System: An Application of Comparative Media Approach

India is the largest democracy of the world with a vibrant mediascape and there is a complicated relationship between Indian media and political systems. Using the approach of comparative media analysis and available literature, this study analyses Indian media on the dimensions of media and political systems developed by Hallin and Mancini (2004) in their book Comparing Media Systems. Indian political system is characterized by clientelism and polarized pluralism thus yielding high political parallelism and instrumentalisation of media at the hands of political and corporate elites. Commercialization of media has ensued weak professionalism among journalists and media organizations. However, Indian media may have a promising future because of early development of democracy and minimum state intervention. Indian media carries the features of all three media models proposed by Hallin and Mancini. Though, analysis reveals that Indian media system is dominantly closer to Liberal model of North Atlantic countries.