Framing the Nation: Citizenship, Conflict, and the Media in Contemporary India

背景这项研究的双重背景是2019年12月通过的公民身份修正案和正在进行的新冠肺炎疫情，这两件事都引发了大量关于印度公民身份意义的媒体辩论和政治抗议，最终导致2020年2月德里的政治暴力。CAA和随之而来的国家公民登记册(NRC)被许多人认为是对穆斯林的歧视，从而使印度作为一个世俗国家的想法受到质疑。NRC还提高了较贫穷印度人的公民身份，这些人可能无法提供文件来证明自己的归属。2020年3月新冠肺炎的爆发进一步加剧了这种紧张局势，因为穆斯林和外来务工人员不仅被一些媒体批评为病毒的传播者，而且封锁的影响对这些群体来说尤其困难。为现有的文学增添价值克里斯托夫·杰弗洛特在最近的一次采访中谈到了公共领域的“藏红化”，这导致了伊斯兰恐惧症和反达利特暴力的“常规化”。共和电视台类似于美国的福克斯电视网，只是这一过程中最突出的载体，但Jaffrelot认为，即使是自由派报纸和广播公司也在经济和政治压力的共同作用下进行自我审查，因为媒体依赖广告收入生存(2018：473)。对国大党抗议活动和新冠肺炎疫情的报道可能并不代表藏红化的延续，而是藏红化的加剧，这可能意味着一些广播公司和报纸实际上被并入人民党政府，异见人士在其他地方基本上受到压制，这让媒体在维护民主方面扮演的角色这一紧迫问题浮出水面。公共领域的藏红化应该被理解为一个交织在一起的经济和政治项目。Sahana Udupa认为，“企业印度教”在很大程度上是由社交媒体的负担推动的(2018：253)。虽然社交媒体肯定是它的工具之一，但人们可能会将这个概念的范围扩大到一些传统的新闻媒体，这些媒体提供可能同时服务于经济和政治目的的娱乐和意识形态。这样的新闻报道可能有助于创造Shakuntala Banaji(2018)所说的“义务警员公共”的崛起，这些团体因此有勇气将国家在民主政体中的适当角色掌握在自己手中。虽然有一些关于反穆斯林和反穷人的表述以及关于印度媒体中的“社区”暴力的表述的现有文献(Pandit and Chattopadhyay，2018；Narayana和Kapur，2011；Ahmed，2017；Drabu，2018；Ahmed，2010；O‘Brochta，2019年)，但我们将增加文献的价值：概念上，通过将媒体分析嵌入对公共领域的更广泛理解；在方法上，通过采用混合方法方法，在整个研究过程中纳入利益攸关方的观点；以及在经验上，通过审查当代有争议的事件，在其中印地语和英语新闻媒体积极构建民族意识。

BackgroundThe dual context of this research is the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December 2019 and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, both of which have occasioned considerable media debate and political protest about the meaning of citizenship in India culminating in political violence in Delhi in February 2020. The CAA and the accompanying National Register of Citizens (NRC) is perceived by many as discriminatory against Muslims thereby throwing into doubt the idea of India as a secular nation. The NRC also raises the citizenship status of poorer Indians who might not be able to provide documents to prove their belonging. The outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020 further exacerbated these tensions as Muslims and migrant workers have not only been subjected to criticism in some media as being spreaders of the virus but also the impact of the lockdown has been particularly difficult for these groups. Adding Value to Existing LiteratureChristophe Jaffrelot in a recent interview has spoken about the 'saffronisation' of the public sphere that has resulted in the 'banalisation' of Islamophobia and anti-Dalit violence. Republic TV, similar to the Fox network in the USA, is only the most prominent carrier of this process but Jaffrelot argues that even liberal newspapers and broadcasters engage in self-censorship under a combination of economic and political pressure as media are reliant on advertising revenue for their survival (2018:473). The coverage of the CAA protests and the Covid-19 pandemic possibly represent not a continuation but an intensification of saffronisation that could mean that some broadcasters and newspapers become de facto incorporated into the BJP government with dissent is largely suppressed elsewhere throwing into relief the urgent question of the role that media play in sustaining democracy. The saffronisation of the public sphere should be understood as an intertwined economic and political project. Sahana Udupa has argued that 'enterprise Hindutva' has been propelled largely by the affordances of social media (2018: 253). While social media has certainly been one of its vehicles, one can potentially extend the range of the concept to some traditional news media that provide a diet of entertainment and ideology that may serve both economic and political purposes. Such news coverage may help to create what Shakuntala Banaji (2018) has referred to as the rise of 'vigilante publics', groups thereby emboldened to take into their own hands the proper role of the state in a democratic polity. While there is some extant literature on anti-Muslim and anti-poor representations and on representations of 'communal' violence in India media (Pandit and Chattopadhyay, 2018; Narayana and Kapur, 2011; Ahmed, 2017; Drabu, 2018; Ahmed, 2010; O'Brochta, 2019), we will add value to the literature: conceptually, through embedding media analysis in a broader understanding of the public sphere; methodologically, through deploying a mixed methods approach, which integrates stakeholder perspectives throughout the research process; and empirically, through examining contemporary contentious events, in which Hindi and English news media have actively framed nationhood.