India’s shift from anchors to influencers

‘Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.’ –Jim Morrison

A silent yet radical transformation of India’s media ecosystem is under way. Television news continues to dominate primetime ratings, but its grip on public discourse is weakening, slowly yet surely. In its place, digital influencers are emerging as key actors in public communication, often with explicit institutional endorsement. This is not merely a new outreach strategy; it marks a deeper reconfiguration of how credibility, visibility, and authority are created in India’s digital public sphere.

For decades, the news anchor served as an intermediary between the State and the citizen. Anchors framed political narratives, facilitated debate, and, at least nominally, held power to account. Today, that model appears exhausted. Public distrust, politics of ideology, performative debates and spectacle-driven formats have pushed audiences away. Influencers, by contrast, thrive within the logic of digital platforms, where attention, authenticity, and affect matter more than institutional authority.

Government collaboration with influencers signals a decisive shift. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s campaigns—such as Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav and WAVES (World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit)—demonstrate that influencer-led communication is strategic rather than incidental. The Ministry of Tourism’s Dekho Apna Desh campaign has relied heavily on travel and lifestyle influencers to promote domestic tourism, generating greater traction on national news media coverage. During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare similarly partnered with fitness influencers, Instagram doctors and regional creators to disseminate behavioural guidelines.

What the State is leveraging here is not merely reach, but legitimacy. As attention shifts from scheduled broadcasts to personalised feeds, the State understands that the key to communication has little to do with the media and everything to do with algorithms. Influencers offer access to demographically and linguistically specific audiences that traditional news outlets struggle to reach.

This shift should not be read as the simple decline of journalism. Rather, it reflects a structural shift of journalism from State-media relations to platform-driven media culture. Public discourse is now shaped by infrastructures that no longer depend on journalistic norms for the co-construction of reality. 

Influencers succeed where television news anchors falter for three key reasons. First, they are native to platform logics. Their content is designed for brevity, emotion and immediacy. Unlike television anchors bound by newsroom hierarchies and rigid formats, influencers communicate in a language perceived as authentic—even when messages are scripted or aligned with government communications. Regional creators on YouTube, in languages such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, or Bengali, have been particularly effective.

Second, influencers benefit from a paradox of credence. At a time when institutional media faces widespread scepticism, the very absence of overt institutional affiliation lends their messages greater trust. A lifestyle YouTuber promoting a government cleanliness drive, or an investment influencer explaining digital payments under the Digital India initiative, may appear more believable than a television correspondent delivering the same message.

Third, influencers blur the boundary between the private and the political. Public messaging is embedded within stories about everyday life—such as travel vlogs showcasing tourist destinations, fitness channels endorsing health initiatives or financial bloggers normalising digital transactions. While this enhances the transparency of governance communication, it also reduces opportunities for critical scrutiny.

This transformation, however, creates an imperative concerning democratic accountability. Influencers operate outside the ethical frameworks that govern journalism. Additionally, disclosure norms for institutional ties remain weak, and regulatory oversight is limited. The public is rarely informed about the terms under which influencers engage with public institutions. Algorithmic biases further amplify certain identities, languages and urbanities, while marginalising others.

The question, therefore, is not whether influencers should be part of public communication, but on what terms. A democratic media ecosystem requires transparency about power, sponsorship, and intent. The challenge ahead involves striking a balance between reach and responsibility, while also fostering innovation and promoting democratic accountability. This is particularly important given the shift from traditional newsrooms to personal feeds, which is changing the discourse in India.

(Ishayu is with the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, UK, and Neelatphal is a faculty member in the Department of Media Studies, Christ University)