A Primer on Prime Time Debates of Malayalam News Channels

During non-election times, Malayalam news channels telecast stories, debates and reports on latest developments of social issues. Whereas, during the election times, these channels cover election campaign, candidature, and conduct debates on various topics like manifesto of different political parties and their approach to various issues, old and new controversies, etc. In such debates and news programmes, views of electorates as well as experts from the field concerned are also presented. The research paper, with the support of a qualitative content analysis conducted on four prime time news programmes, explores the genre of news programmes and debates of Malayalam news channels. The prime-time programmes selected for the study are as follows: “Counter Point” of Malayala Manorama, “News Hour” of Asianet News, “News Night” of Indiavision, and News N Views of People. The paper claims that these channels invariably subscribed to certain styles and formats of similarity and synchronicity during the 2011 Kerala Assembly polls—be it in the selection of topics or presentation.

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