Contextualizing Platform Dependence and Publisher Disentanglements in India

The growing dominance of search and social media platforms over online news industries has undermined their editorial independence and economic sustainability. However, platforms’ dominance only partly explains the state of platform dependence. This paper underscores the importance of examining both how and why asymmetries between platforms and publishers were formed in the first place. It focuses on how underlying structural and contextual conditions inform platform dependence and publishers’ negotiations in India. In particular, it draws attention to pre-existing institutional, market, and political conditions that have structured Indian news markets long before platforms’ entry, yet continue to imprint the relationship between publishers and platforms. Drawing on Indian media studies literature and 32 semi-structured interviews, this paper presents findings on how historical commercialization of the press, low in-house technological development, inherent market asymmetries, and persistent state (in)actions have augmented news’ dependence on platforms in India. Concurrently, I argue that these conditions have shaped Indian publishers’ disentanglement strategies. Building on earlier studies, this paper identifies three distinct yet simultaneous strategies: coexistence, collaboration, and non-contestation. In doing so, it contextualizes platform dependence and publisher disentanglements by emphasizing the structural conditions that sustain these dynamics.