Rudransh Mukherjee, Shaily Desai, Dhruv Raghavan, Joyojeet Pal
to cite:
Mukherjee, R., Desai, S., Raghavan, D., Pal, J,. (2024) Political Interviewing on YouTube: An Analysis of Indian Politicians’ Engagement with Digital Influencers and Media Houses online. Available Online at: https://joyojeet.people.si.umich.edu/InfluInterview.pdf
With digital media competing with mainstream media for shaping public opinion during election cycles, there are still open questions on the comparative value of different media platforms for politicians’ outreach goals. We collected data on 151 politician interviews across 25 YouTube channels that have interviewed Indian politicians in the last year and conducted a mixed methods analysis of the content and views of these interviews. We find that: a) political content garners comparatively higher engagement for on channels that are primarily digital, than on YouTube channels of mainstream media outlets and (b) that there are significant differences in both the self-portrayal, and the substantive engagement of politicians in interviews in the two mediums. Our findings underline the importance of deeper examination on the importance of digital influencers and standalone anchors and journalists who set up their own social media channels to understand the challenge they pose to mainstream media houses.
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