Visibility vs. Engagement: How Two Indian News Websites Reported on LGBTQ+ Individuals and Communities during the Pandemic

TL;DR

This study examines how two major Indian English-language newspapers reported on LGBTQ+ communities during COVID-19, revealing limited depth, some transphobic language, and shifts in visibility and sentiment compared to pre-pandemic coverage.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of LGBTQ+ coverage during the pandemic in two Indian newspapers, highlighting issues of representation, sentiment, and language used.

Findings

Greater focus on transgender communities in articles

Presence of transphobic and outdated language in some articles

Shift in topics and sentiments during the pandemic period

Abstract

In India, online news media outlets were an important source of information for people with digital access during the COVID-19 pandemic. In India, where "transgender" was legally recognised as a category only in 2014, and same-sex marriages are yet to be legalised, it becomes crucial to analyse whether and how they reported the lived realities of vulnerable LGBTQ+ communities during the pandemic. This study analysed articles from online editions of two English-language newspaper websites, which differed vastly in their circulation figures-The Times of India and The Indian Express. The results of our study suggest that these newspaper websites published articles surrounding various aspects of the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals with a greater focus on transgender communities. However, they lacked quality and depth. Focusing on the period spanning March 2020 to August 2021, we analysed articles using sentiment analysis and topic modelling. We also compared our results to the period before the pandemic (January 2019 - December 2019) to understand the shift in topics, sentiments, and stances across the two newspaper websites. A manual analysis of the articles indicated that the language used in certain articles by The Times of India was transphobic and obsolete. Our study captures the visibility and representation of the LGBTQ+ communities in Indian newspaper websites during the pandemic.