Analysis on the gender representation and media narratives through Youtube journalism

AN ANALYSIS ON THE GENDER REPRESENTATION AND MEDIA NARRATIVES THROUGH INDEPENDENT FEMALE - LED NEWS CHANNELS ON YOUTUBE

(Analytical research piece)

 - By Sarah Khan 

The emergence of digital journalism has transformed the worldwide media environment, offering a space for independent perspectives apart from conventional news outlets. YouTube, through its open and decentralized framework, has allowed journalists to circumvent traditional gatekeeping, resulting in the rise of independent news outlets. As per the News Report (Reuters Institute Digital News Report , 2022) about 61% of online users in India get their news through digital channels, with YouTube being the most favored option. This online transition has especially profited female journalists, enabling them to establish independent platforms for news coverage that are free from corporate and political pressures. 

Meaning and Justification of title- “Independent Female-Led News Channels" 

The title has been derived from two existing terms- 

1.  Independent news channels - it implies platforms that operate outside government control. The term ‘Independent’ in the title refers to not owned by the mainstream media houses and is based on self-funding. 
2.  Female led organisation/ business – companies or platforms primarily managed and handled by women. The ‘female-led’ term means that the key leadership and editorial direction is from a woman, regardless of having or not having male employees being in the team or indirectly contributing to it. 

 Gender Representation in Journalism 

Although more women are participating in journalism, gender bias continues to be a widespread problem. Research indicates that women hold merely 15-25% of leadership roles in newsrooms across India. A study conducted by The Global Media Monitoring Project (2020) revealed that merely 24% of news subjects and sources in India are female, highlighting a notable gender disparity in news coverage. Conventional media has frequently sidelined female journalists, restricting their opportunities to cover serious news topics like politics, crime, and finance. 

Hence, female leadership in journalism and coverage of serious issues like murder crimes and finance has been stereotyped. As independent digital journalism has grown, women journalists have established their own platforms to confront these stereotypes. Digital journalism allows them to produce news without the intervention of corporates and getting into TRP race. Providing more freedom of content, it also helps them showcase female leadership in journalism. 

Conventional newsrooms frequently overlook women’s perspectives, yet independent femaledriven YouTube channels such as Mojo Story (Barkha Dutt), Ulta Chashma (Pragya Mishra), and Faye D'Souza and The Bahujan Khabar’s platform offer an alternative venue for genderfocused and autonomous journalism.

These platforms transform news stories by emphasizing overlooked issues, centering women’s viewpoints, and addressing subjects such as gender-based violence, politics, and social justice. In contrast to traditional media, they possess editorial independence to explore stories with thoroughness and genuineness, promoting more balanced and inclusive journalism.

The selected female journalists represent diverse approaches to gender representation and media narratives. They have successfully transitioned from mainstream media to independent platforms, showing the power of digital media for female journalists. Hence, they have been chosen for the research.

Faye D’Souza (Independent Channel - Faye D’Souza) 

• She has constantly shown her fearless and factual journalism without any political bias and focused on stories of public interest. 
• She has challenged mainstream media’s sensationalism, openly discussing genderbased issues.

Barkha Dutt (Channel name- Mojo Story) 

• She has shifted to independent digital journalism from the mainstream TV channel NDTV, going away from the corporate intervention. 
• Barkha has covered women’s rights extensively in her news and been vocal about the challenges that female journalists face in India making her channel relevant for analysing gender representation.

Dhanya Rajendran (channel name – The News Minute) 

• She focuses on South India, offering a regional perspective often ignored by the mainstream, helping in diverse representation for the study. 
• She covers gender issues and media ethics actively on her platform which aligns with the research focus on gender representation and media narratives.

Priyanka (The Bahujan Khabar) 

• She has a grassroot YouTube news platform which focuses on amplifying the voices and issues faced by the Dalits, Adivasis and Bahujan communities, especially women. 
• Her channel offers a critical alternative to the mainstream media by reporting on ground rural and underrepresented regions, highlighting the injustices based on caste and gender which are often ignored in the traditional news spaces.

Shagufa Saiyeda (Channel name – The Nation) 

• She leads an independent Hindi news platform where she fearlessly questions political authorities and reports from the ground, focusing on issues of public concern, law, and governance. 
• As a female anchor and field reporter in a male-dominated media landscape, Shaghufa brings a rare presence of assertive female voice in Hindi journalism, though her engagement with gender issues remains limited and indirect.

Through direct engagement with audiences via interactive formats and varied storytelling, these journalists not only challenge obstacles for women in media but also transform digital news, enhancing its transparency, representation, and focus on community.

ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

In the month of March, 2025, a couple of videos from each of the five youtube channels were analysed. Secondly, the interviews were carried out for two channels The Bhahujan Khabar and The Nation respectively.

One of the most significant insights from the video analysis and interviews is the difference between talking about women and letting women talk. Many platforms include women as subjects in stories—often highlighting gender-based violence, discrimination, or achievements—but few give them narrative agency. That is, women are often talked about but not necessarily allowed to narrate or shape their own stories (Banaji, 2021). This distinction between subject matter inclusion and representational inclusion became a critical framework in understanding gendered media spaces (Byerly, 2013).

For example, Faye D’Souza and The Mojo Story prominently feature women journalists as the face of their reporting. These platforms, being independently led by women, allow for a more direct involvement of women as decision-makers, not just content contributors. Their presence affects not just what is reported, but how it is reported. Issues of gender, caste, or mental health are covered with greater sensitivity and depth when the narrator shares some identity overlap with the subject (Sreekumar, 2022).

In contrast, The News Minute has a structured editorial team with women in leadership but still reflects a somewhat conventional newsroom hierarchy. While editor-in-chief Dhanya Rajendran’s presence contributes to stronger prioritization of gender stories, the platform occasionally falls short in integrating intersectionality, especially in coverage related to caste and rural gender issues (Rao, 2020). The interviews with journalists indicated that while newsroom policies are often gender-sensitive, they do not always translate to inclusive narrative practices across all coverage areas.

The analysis of The Bahujan Khabar brought to light an important but often overlooked truth: intersectional journalism is only possible when platforms are rooted in the lived experiences of marginalized communities. As one journalist from the platform noted during interviews, “you cannot truly tell a Dalit woman’s story unless she is trained and empowered to tell it herself.” This reflects the shift from token representation to genuine narrative ownership. Merely covering Dalit women’s issues is not enough; the platform emphasized the need to mentor and include Dalit women as content creators and reporters—amplifying not just the story, but the storyteller (Soundararajan, 2019).

On the other hand, The Nation demonstrates a strong political voice but with gender often treated as secondary to class, government policy, or nationalist narratives. The platform being founded by a woman, still carries traces of mainstream media's patriarchal habits — especially in how it references women’s issues without deeply including women’s voices. Shaghufa, the face of the channel, establishes a strong, assertive presence as both an anchor and ground reporter. While the platform publishes gender-related content, there is limited space for women—especially from marginalized identities—to shape narratives themselves. Unlike Mojo Story or The Bahujan Khabar, where gender issues are central to the narrative, The Nation seldom prioritises feminist perspectives or addresses systemic gender-based injustice in a consistent or critical way. Its editorial framing reflects a predominantly male-dominated political lens, where women's issues are often compartmentalized rather than integrated into mainstream political discourse (Chaudhuri, 2021). Video content analysis showed that even in gender-centric stories, the voices and visuals were frequently male-dominated, reinforcing traditional power hierarchies.

Collectively, these observations point toward the need for more independent, female-led digital platforms, particularly those led by women from marginalized identities. Such platforms don't merely amplify women’s issues—they allow women to construct and deliver the narratives themselves (Roy, 2021). This shift is necessary to move beyond tokenistic representation and toward authentic narrative agency—a term that implies not just visibility, but creative and editorial control over the story.

While digital journalism offers new spaces for gender-inclusive reporting, true representation requires more than coverage—it demands ownership, voice, and visibility. Without this, platforms risk reproducing the same exclusions they seek to challenge. As feminist media theorists have argued for years, inclusion without agency is illusionary (Gallagher, 2014). Independent, identity-aware journalism is key to not just reporting on, but with and by women.