SYNOPSIS

Research Topic :
“A Comparative Study of Times of
India & The Hindu on The Basis of
The Culture Industry, Infotainment
& Prominent Events’ Coverage of
2018”

Submitted By:
Name:
Class:
INTRODUCTION
What is a Newspaper ?
The Newspaper is one of the printed medium of media available to the common
man. It provides awareness about the happenings of the neighbourhood to every
corner of the world. Our idea of newspaper is of folded sheets which contain
information about and articles on news, features, reviews and advertisements but it
is much more than that. It means the world to some. It has the power to change
one’s life. The information we receive from the newspaper plays a vital role in our
daily life.

Its Importance in Our Lives

 Newspapers carry the news of the world.
 Newspapers provide information and general knowledge.
 Newspapers provide news about a country’s economic situation, sports,
games, entertainment, trade and commerce.
 Reading newspaper makes a good habit and it is already part of the modern
life. This habit will widen your outlook and will enrich your knowledge.
 Reading newspaper makes you well informed. It enables you to take part in
every discussion pertaining to the world’s current events.
 Reading newspapers will improve your knowledge in general and it will be
easy for you to relate to other people who often talks about current events and
politics.
 Through newspapers, you will have a clear idea and understanding of what is
happening in your country and the whole world.

Most of the newspapers we have seen publish almost the same news sometimes
because of the agencies they have been affiliated with while others just because of
the competition and pressure, just because one organisation is doing it so will the
others too, newspapers are more than a mere replica of one and other and to find
the differentiation if not among, but between others we have decided to do a
comparison between two major English Dailies of India - The Times of India
and The Hindu.
The TOI and The Hindu are major English dailies in India with a circulation of
2,826,164 & 1,397,944 respectively (IRS, 2017). We are going to compare both the
newspapers on certain parameters:

(a) Culture Industry, (b) Infotainment, (c) Tabloidization, (d) Hard News - Soft News,
(e) Advertising, (f) Readership
OBJECTIVES
We are supposed to find the impacts of these two dailies on the different parameters
which are mentioned above on the basis of the prominent event coverage from 10 th
Dec 2018 – 20th Dec 2018.

The Times of India with its freebies, eye catching presentation and increased
visibility is clearly able to capture the majority share of the readers in a consumer
based economy and is hence the largest read English newspaper in the country. The
general trend among students wanting a greater emphasis on hard news is towards
the Hindu while a majority of the students prefer the Times of India for its eye
catching news and its special focus on glamour and pin up images of actresses in
the Kanpur Times section of the paper.

COMPARATIVE STUDIES
The comparison would show us, how different the newspapers are from each other,
by their appearance, the data, etc.

The comparative study is based on the following parameters :

(a) Comparison on the basis of Front Page

(b) Comparison on the basis of Front Page Tabs
(c) Comparison on the basis of Cultural Impact
(d) Comparison on the basis of Colored Pages
(e) Comparison on the basis of Advertisement Space
(f) Comparison on the basis of Pages and Type
(g) Comparison on the basis of Infotainment
(h) Comparison on the basis of Readership
(i) Comparison on the basis of News’ Events

MAJOR RESPONSES
 My choice has always been The Hindu because of its refined language, large
degree of authenticity of the news and above all for its vast outreach that
caters to almost all social strata.
 TOI for me because its more glamorous(with pictures n all) n it gives more
sports news than any other english daily

 I prefer TOI. The presentation of the paper, which includes the color
combination and fonts etc. is more amicable. News headlines are such that
they grasp your curiosity...

 I dislike The Hindu because its so strongly biased towards 'pseudo-

secularism’. Plus its too dull…TOI is flashy and tends to do anything and
everything just to catch another eye is that journalism ... No. Is that
entertainment .. Yes! So when I need entertainment , I prefer TOI and for
news , I prefer HT or The Indian Express

 The Hindu as the best national daily of India. It is the only newspaper where
the pure character of journalism is still alive. If you are looking for no
nonsense, accurate, intelligent, serious, unbiased and reliable reporting with
in-depth yet to the point editorials and opinions, it is the right option. The only
demerit which I see with this newspaper is that sometimes, it becomes pro-left
but anyway despite being an avid right wing supporter. According to the
Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2011 The Hindu is the third most widely read
English newspaper in India (after the Times of India and Hindustan Times)
with a readership of approximately 2.0 million people.
 The Times of India, on the other hand, is the world’s largest selling English-
language daily but the fans of The Hindu, including me, often criticize TOI for
its extra attention on Bollywood, Cricket, fashion news and page 3 gossips.
You can always find substandard and pure sensationalism with heavy dosage
of film and page 3 party news in TOI. Even if you visit the website of Time of
India, you will find it very much cluttered and full of advertisements and pop
ups.
 An ad war started between these two leading newspapers when Times of
India first launched a new campaign for its Chennai edition. The campaign
titled, ‘Wake up to The Times of India’. The Times of India declared in its ad
that The Hindu (without naming the paper) puts readers to sleep due to its
boring news and content. In that ad you would see a Tamil man sleeping in
different scenes in a satirical way so as to project that the readers of Chennai
have been reading boring papers for a long time and now the time has come
to switch to TOI’s Chennai edition for their daily dose of colorful and exciting
news.
 The Hindu responded with YouTube videos which showed a series of
youngsters being unable to answer basic general awareness questions but
being totally up to speed on trivial information such as Hrithik Roshan’s
nickname and Kareena’s size zero. Naturally, it was because they read The
Times of India. And believe me, these ads damaged reputation of TOI almost
all over India.
CONCLUSION
After comparing the two newspapers on the different parameters, it can be
concluded that both of them has a different fan base. One needs check up on their
needs and what is their desired result would be before choosing a particular
newspaper. If you are looking for more creative content the TOI would work but if
one has to spend more time on the quality and vocabulary of the news’ material then
The Hindu would be more suitable. Hence, they both target different audience and
area successful in their own ways.