Watch Nidhi Razdan: YouTubers and their influence on India elections

Transcript

00:00One of the more interesting phenomena of the Indian general election this year has been

00:08the rise of YouTubers who've been doing phenomenally well in the media space. Now, why has this

00:15happened? It's happened largely because traditional mainstream media in India has lost its credibility.

00:21And this is particularly true of television news, which is seen as partisan and biased

00:25completely in favour of the government and with very little critical reporting of what

00:31are the issues that people care about. In the absence of that kind of criticism and

00:37genuine journalism in that sense, it is the YouTubers and the YouTube stars who've emerged

00:42as these alternate voices. And by the way, it's not just the opposition that finds that

00:49they are using YouTube much more to get their message across. Even the BJP, which has nurtured

00:55mainstream media in the way that it has and captured the mainstream space in a sense,

00:59has also been turning to influencers and YouTubers in order to disseminate their message. But

01:05more than those who have party affiliations, it's those who are independent voices that

01:10are really going viral. So they're not just making an impact on their YouTube channels,

01:14but WhatsApp forwards, small clips on social media, etc. And they are the ones that are

01:19asking the most hard-hitting questions. It's no surprise then that the government isn't

01:24too pleased and is hoping to bring in more rules to clamp down on the digital media space.