Visual Presentation of Election Result in Hindi Newspapers: A Comparative Study
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Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology Issn No : 1006-7930
Visual Presentation of Election Result in Hindi Newspapers:
A Comparative Study
SARVESHWARAM KRISHNAM AND CHANDI P. PAINULI*
University School of Mass Communication, GGSIP University, New Delhi-110078
*Bhaskar Institute of Mass Communication and Journalism, Bundelkhand University, Jhansi-284127 (UP)
INTRODUCTION
When electronic media struck the Indian format of journalism, it is believed that the epoch of
print media is on the brink of dying. There was a hysterical mass appeal for its brightness and
appearance. However, the peak of the electronic media appears to reach its nadir, because this
medium is contaminated with sensational and unscrupulous news and content. News analysts
and anchors have pushed the electronic media down further. Therefore, there is a clear shift
of viewers in the print media from electronic. It seems that the epoch of print media has come
to stay. In the last few years there has been a significant increase in the number of
newspapers and magazines. The Digital Revolution has enabled print media to enrich its
content and visual communication through the use of graphics and high quality pictures.
Print Media is now more innovative also due to the challenges raised by electronic media,
online newspaper and social media. Print media even more experimental in terms of its
content and quality. Print media is using more visuals to tide its reader with their respective
newspaper. On any special activity/occasions its presentation and packaging is adopting
more innovative ways unlike the publishing days of yore.
In the age of social media and mobile, when information is available on reader’s finger
movement, it’s very difficult challenge for print media to save itself. In past readers had to
depend on print media only for any information. Till seventies only one medium i.e. Radio
was available for current information apart from print media. But after seventies many
mediums i.e. Television, internet, online newspaper and now social media came in existence
for providing the information. Because of its different properties like visuals, fast, handy etc.
these mediums getting popularity very fast. Due to its properties these medium are becoming
a big challenge for print media. Now readers are getting information very fast. These media
satisfies the user's appetite by providing information very fast. But in this tough time also
print media tied up its reader, this is due to following two very important reasons:
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1. Reliability
Whenever there is a crisis in the country newspapers play a very important role due to its
reliability.
2. Continuous, steady and solid changes in its design
In present scenario, design and graphics is playing vital role in survival of newspapers. The
specialty of design elements is that it pulls the readers towards it and makes the message
reach the readers quicker than the text.
On any important occasion, the readers stick to the TV and other media throughout the day
but apart from that they wait for the newspaper next day. The main reason behind this is
reliability of print media and continuously changes in its presentation and adding newness in
itself. On next day to any mega events, we find the form of newspaper very different than
other day. We find the use of new words, graphics, design, illustrations etc. to attract the
reader.
IMPORTANCE OF GENERAL ELECTION IN INDIA
India is a democratic country and for any democratic country election is very important. “By
election people find a way to express their voice and opinion and they choose a person whose
preferences and opinions closely match with them6”. There are different bodies of
governance are there in India like union government, state government, local government
(panchayat, zila parisad etc.) and for each bodies of governance elections is required in Indian
democracy. In the Union Government, elections are also held for the President, Vice
President, Rajya Sabha, but the general public of the entire country, who are more than 18
years of age, participate in the Lok Sabha elections in a big way. That’s why this election is
also called general election. “According to the constitution of India every citizen of India
over the age 18 years are qualified voter6”. Usually general election took place after every 5
years but some time midterm polls also held due to fall of government. Constitution
envisaged maximum strength of the Lok Sabha is 5528. The current strength of the Lok Sabha
is 5457. Out of 545 seats, on two seats member of Anglo-Indian community get nominated by
the President of India and election takes place on the remaining 543 seats.
ELECTION RESULTS AND PRINT MEDIA
Print media played very important role during the freedom movement of India. It was a key
factor in getting independence. After independence it work like watch dog and saved the
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democracy. Whenever there was a danger on democracy this media played an important role
to protect it. During emergency, in 21- month’s period from 1975 to 1977, many sanctions
had imposed on it. But apart from the sanctions it works to save the democracy. Today also
apart from many challenges from the other media it is serving the Indian democracy as
before. Print media covered all the major events apart from the regular coverage. General
election is a major event, which held on regular interval to strengthen the democracy. Print
media play vital role during the elections, it cover, election campaign organized by the
political parties, election related news and election results. During the coverage of election
result it use visual elements more to present it.
LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Philip C. Geraci studied three newspapers USA Today, the Washington Times and
the Washington Post in Comparison of Graphic Design and Illustration Use In Three
Washington, D.C., Newspapers and found that in all three of the comparison
newspapers, the predominant illustration was the black and white head shot. The
second most used illustration was a black and white medium-range photograph of
people3.
2. Theresa G. Siskind found in The Effect of Newspaper Design on Reader Preferences
that respondents preferred contemporary to traditional designs and well-designed
pages to those of average design. The findings of his research study lead to the
tentative conclusion that in order to appeal to reader preferences, newspaper owners
and staff members should be concerned with quality of design as well as
contemporaneity5.
3. Kevin G. Barnhurst and John C. Nerone found in Design Trends in U.S. Front Pages,
1885-1985; that front pages had in fact changed in much the way that the
conventional wisdom predicted. But they also found that the change was gradual, that
is, that the ideas behind the “design revolution” had been influencing front pages for
over half a century. The direction of change was toward making the front page a more
efficient map of the news for readers, , implying that the sources of change were in
design theory and news ideology rather than in economics or technology. The upshot
of these changes has been greater uniformity among front pages15.
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4. Taberez Ahmed Neyazi in Politics after Vernacularisation: Hindi Media and Indian
Democracy has focused on how Hindi media played an important role in Indian
democracy. An overview of the literature on the Indian news media shows that the
English media, which dominated the national media market from independence till the
late 1990s, is no longer the dominant market player and vernacular media pose a
serious challenge to the dominance and authority of English media in the public
sphere16.
5. In Front Page Design: Some Trends Continue, Sandra H. Utt and Steve Pasternack
found that a 20-year update of front page design found more newspapers running all
photos in 4-color and using offset printing, boldface sans serif type for dominant
headlines, digital imaging and computerized pagination systems17.
OBJECTIVES
Objectives of this paper are to find out the following in highly circulated newspapers in Delhi
during election result of 17th General Election of India:
To study the various design elements used frequently for election result coverage in
Hindi Newspapers.
To analyze the design element dominated on the front page of Hindi Newspapers
during election result.
METHOD
The researcher selected eleven newspapers published in Hindi and which are in circulation in
New Delhi. Content Analysis has been done in this research. Quantative method has been
followed. Research area of this study is Delhi. In the present research, researcher has selected
the publication of 24th May 2019 as the result of 17th general election announced on 23rd May
2019 and was published in the newspapers of 24th May 2019. In this research paper,
researcher has tried to find out how print media covered/presented this mega event in their
respective newspaper in terms of image, illustration and graphics.
SAMPLE COMPOSITION
Researcher has selected a total number of 11 highly circulated newspapers in Hindi. List of
newspapers are given below in Table 1 with total number of pages in main newspaper.
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Researcher didn’t include supplement pages of newspapers for his research. He included
pages of main bunch only for his research.
Table 1
S. No. Name of Newspaper No. of Pages
01. Jansatta 16
02. Navbharat Times 20*
03. Pioneer 16
04. Hindustan 24
05. Amar Ujala 26
06. Dainik Bhaskar 24
07. Punjab Kesari 20
08. Dainik Jagran 24
09. Veer Arjun 12
10. Navoday Times 20
11. Rastriya Sahara 16
* On first two page advertisement are there.
On the basis of size newspapers are broadly divided in three categories namely Broadsheet,
Tabloid and newsletter. This research paper covers only those data, news, articles,
photograph, colour, infograph etc. of newspapers which are related to election result. Other
part of the newspapers didn’t cover in this research paper.
White is also a colour but this is a default colour for newspaper background. While counting
the number of colour used on newspaper as background colour, white background colour
didn’t counted by the researcher. Black is also a colour but this is a default colour for
newspaper text. While counting the number of colour used in newspaper as text colour, black
text colour didn’t counted by the researcher. While counting the number of colours used for
background and text colour, researcher didn’t counted those colours which are used in
illustrations and infographs.
FINDINGS
Researcher has taken a total number of 11 newspaper of Hindi language circulated in Delhi.
All newspapers are broadsheet type in terms of size. As per pages are concerned Amar Ujala
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are having maximum number of pages i.e. 26 pages on 24th May 2019. Veer Arjun is having
least number of pages i.e. 12 pages on this particular day (Refer Table 1). Researcher has
taken 6 parameters for its research. Those are Illustration, Infographics, Dominance of
Illustration/ Headline/ Infographics/Cartoon on front page, Frequency of use of colour in text,
Frequency of use colour in background and use of Cartoon (Refer Table 2 to 3).
Table 2
S. Name of Newspaper Illustration Infographs Use of Cartoon
No.
01. Jansatta 43 33 1
02. Navbharat Times 158 1 18
03. Pioneer 82 41 0
04. Hindustan 102 42 1
05. Amar Ujala 345 35 0
06. Dainik Bhaskar 65 15 29
07. Punjab Kesari 166 71 8
08. Dainik Jagran 156 1 4
09. Veer Arjun 35 41 0
10. Navoday Times 152 5 12
11. Rastriya Sahara 107 33 0
Illustration
A total number of 1411 illustrations have been used on these all 11 newspapers. In terms of
using illustrations on this particular day Amar Ujala Newspaper was on top, which used
24.45 percent of total illustrations. In terms of using illustrations Punjab Kesari was on 2 nd
position and used 11.76 percent of total illustrations. Veer Arjun was on the last position in
these 11 newspapers in terms of using illustration, which used only 2.48 percent of total
illustrations. Jansatta with 3.04 percent was on 10th position in terms of using illustration
(Refer Table 2).
Researcher observed a full page illustration on front page of Rastriya Sahara Newspaper.
Researcher found only photographs on page number 12 of Rastriya Sahara Newspaper, which
was related to election result. There were a total number of 8 photographs found on this page.
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Researcher found only photographs on page number 16 of Rastriya Sahara Newspaper, which
was related to election result. There were a total number of 11 photographs found on this
page. Researcher found only photographs with caption on page number 7 of Navodaya Times
Newspaper, which was related to election result. There were a total number of 15
photographs with caption found on this page.
Infographs
A total number of 318 infographs have been used on these all 11 newspapers. In terms of
using infographs on this particular day Punjab Kesari Newspaper was on top, which used
22.32 percent of total infographs. In terms of using infographs Hindustan was on 2nd position
and used 13.20 percent of total infographs. Jointly Dainik Jagran and Navbharat Times were
on the last position in these 11 newspapers in terms of using infographs, which used only
0.31 percent each of total infographs. Navodaya Times with 1.57 percent was on 3 rd last
position in terms of using infographs. (Refer Table 2)
There was infograph observed on the maximum area of page number 9 of Navbharat Times.
On the maximum area of page number 12 and 13 of Dainik Jagran Newspaper infograph was
observed. With infograph only few line text were found. Infographs were observed on the
whole page of page number 14 in Dainik Jagran Newspaper. Alongwith infographs only very
few texts have been found on this page. A single infograph was found on page number 14 in
Amar Ujala Newspaper. But this single infograph covered almost entire space of this page. A
single infograph was also observed on page number 15 in Hindustan Newspaper. This single
infograph covered almost entire space of this page.
Use of Cartoon
A total number of 73 cartoons have been used on these all 11 newspapers. Four newspapers
Pioneer, Amar Ujala, Veer Arjun and Rastriya Sahara didn’t use any cartoon on this
particular day. In terms of using cartoon Dainik Bhaskar was leading on this particular day,
which was using 39.72 percent of total cartoons. Navbharat Times was on 2nd position and
used 24.65 percent of total cartoon. Jansatta and Hindustan used 1.36 percent each of total
cartoons on this particular day. (Refer Table 2)
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Table 3
S. Name of Frequency of use of Frequency of use of Dominance of
No. Newspaper colour in text colour in background Illustration/ Headline/
Infographs/Cartoon on
front page
01. Jansatta 7 10 H
02. Navbharat Times 23 63 IL*
03. Pioneer 6 17 H
04. Hindustan 30 40 IL
05. Amar Ujala 46 84 IL
06. Dainik Bhaskar 42 40 IL
07. Punjab Kesari 31 57 IL
08. Dainik Jagran 45 32 C
09. Veer Arjun 1 4 H
10. Navoday Times 28 61 IL
11. Rastriya Sahara 6 21 IL
IL – Illustration, H – Headline, C – Cartoon, I – Infograph
* In Navbharat Times, on first two pages Advertisement were there. So, researcher has taken
third page for his research purpose.
Frequency of use of Colour in Text
Total number of frequency of use of colour in text in all the 11 newspaper was 265. Amar
Ujala was leading with the use of 17.35 percent of use of text colour frequency on that day.
With 16.98 percent of use of text colour frequency Dainik Jagran was on the 2nd position.
While counting the colour black text colour has not been counted as black colour is a default
colour and used all the newspapers as default colour. These colour counting were excluding
black text colour. In use of colour text Veer Arjun Newspaper was on the last position with
0.37 percent of frequency of use of colour in text.
Frequency of use Colour in Background
Total number of frequency of use of colour in background in all the 11 newspaper was 429.
Amar Ujala was leading with the use of 19.58 percent of use of background colour frequency
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on that day. With 14.68 percent of use of background colour frequency Navbharat Times was
on the 2nd position. While counting the background colour white background colour has not
been counted as white colour is a default colour and used in all the newspapers as default
colour. These colour counting were excluding white background colour. In use of background
colour Veer Arjun Newspaper was on the last position with 0.93 percent of frequency of use
of colour in background.
Dominance of Illustration/Headline/Infographs/Cartoon on Front Page
Out of 11 newspapers, on seven newspapers Navbharat Times, Hindustan, Amar Ujala,
Dainik Bhaskar, Punjab Kesari, Navoday Times and Rastriya Sahara Illustration is
dominance on front page. On three newspapers Jansatta, Pioneer and Veer Arjun; Headline is
dominating. On one newspaper Dainik Jagran Cartoon is dominating on front page.
Number of pages used for presenting visual elements of election result related news
Table 4
S. Name of Newspaper No. of Pages No. of pages % page used for
No. used for election news
presenting visual with design
elements of elements
election result
related news
01. Jansatta 16 4 25.00
02. Navbharat Times 20* 16 80.00
03. Pioneer 16 13 81.25
04. Hindustan 24 17 70.83
05. Amar Ujala 26 19 73.08
06. Dainik Bhaskar 24 16 66.67
07. Punjab Kesari 20 18 90.00
08. Dainik Jagran 24 19 79.17
09. Veer Arjun 12 9 75.00
10. Navoday Times 20 17 85.00
11. Rastriya Sahara 16 13 81.25
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It has been observed that illustration, infograph and cartoon used a lot in designing of
newspapers. Illustration is on leading position among these three designing elements. A total
number of 1411 illustrations has been used in all these eleven newspaper. While 318
infographs and 73 cartoons has been used.
Table 5
S. Name of Design 1st Position Newspaper Last position Newspaper
No. Elements
01. Illustration Amar Ujala Veer Arjun
02. Infographs Dainik Jagran &
Punjab Kesari Navbharat Times
03. Cartoon Pioneer, Amar Ujala, Veer
Dainik Bhaskar Arjun and Rastriya Sahara
04. Frequency of use of Veer Arjun
colour in Text Amar Ujala
05. Frequency of use of Veer Arjun
colour in background Amar Ujala
It has been observed that in use of five design elements, Amar Ujala is in leading position in
using the three design elements (Illustration, Frequency of use of colour in Text and
Frequency of use of colour in background). While Punjab Kesari and Dainik Bhaskar is
leading in one each i.e. Infographs and Cartoon respectively. Other side, Veer Arjun is the
last in use of these three design elements. Jointly Pionner, Amar Ujala, Veer Arjun and
Ratriya Sahara are on the last in use of one design element. Dainik Jagran and Navbharat
Times are jointly on last position in use of one design element (Refer Table 5). In front page,
Illustration, Headline and Cartoon are dominating design elements. Illustration is dominating
on front page of seven newspapers, headline is dominating on three newspapers and cartoon
is dominating on only one newspaper. It has also been observed by the researcher that Name
plate used on multipage to increase the importance of page. In Hindustan Newspaper, page 12
and 13 were treated like a page. In which, page no. was also written at one place. The same
headline was continuing on both the pages.
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OPERATIONAL DEFINITION
Page dominance has been taken only for front page of newspapers.
Researcher has considered information table as infograph.
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Washington, D.C., Newspapers; Newspaper Research Journal, Vol. 5, Issue 2,
January 1984, Page 29 to 39.
4. Lynne Cooke, A visual convergence of print, television, and the internet: charting 40
years of design change in news presentation, New Media & Society, Vol. 7 (1), Page
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5. Theresa G. Siskind, The Effect of Newspaper Design on Reader Preferences,
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Volume XII, Issue II, 2020 Page No: 251Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology Issn No : 1006-7930
16. Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Politics after Vernacularisation: Hindi Media and Indian
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