(PhD student, 2 December 2024 – 31 March 2025)

BIOGRAPHY:

Simran Agarwal is a doctoral researcher at the LabSIC and LabEx ICCA at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord. Her research titled ‘Platform Governance and the Political Economy of the Digital News Industry in India’ looks at the various forms, mechanisms and impacts of platform governance on the digital news landscape in India.

In the last decade, large digital platforms have become central to all forms of communication, commerce, and culture. This has been possible due to their control over large user datasets, multi-sided market structures, and prolonged periods of regulatory vacuum and support. As a result, culture industries have undergone significant platformization wherein platform-prescribed distribution logic and formats have reconfigured existing cultural practices. Among these industries, Simran’s research looks at the platformization, concomitant governance, and resultant reconfiguration of the digital news industry in India.

This is a pertinent subject to study in India and the platform era because it bears implications for democracy and access to impartial information online. The nexus of the state and platforms’ governing instruments have a considerable influence over how composite and curated news will reach the public. Simran’s research develops a three-pronged platform governance approach to study the impact on the digital news industry. First, she studies the state governance of platforms and digital news, particularly focusing on the transformation in statutory governance instruments and values in the post-colonial Indian state. Second, she investigates the notion of governance by platforms concerning news, wherein platforms’ imperatives of visibility and profitability often override the public interest value of news. Third, the intersection of platform and state powers, and how the state indirectly governs through platforms in India. Therefore, her research brings novel perspectives on the nature of platform governance in India. A final strand of her research studies how digital news publishers of varying capacities negotiate the control exerted by the state and platforms. This reflects nuanced perceptions of control and, therefore, different efforts to counter it. Her research engages mixed methods from critical political economy, media governance, and platform studies.

Prior to her doctoral research, Simran worked at the Centre for Policy Studies, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT, Bombay) where she worked on a collaborative research project titled ‘Media Influence Matrix’ studying the distinct political, financial and technological forces shaping the news media in India. She has since participated in numerous international research conferences and disseminated her work surrounding free speech issues, media policy, and platform governance.

University profile Link: https://labsic.univ-spn.fr/astra-portfolio/simran-agarwal/

Publications:

• Agarwal, S. (2024, InPress). Rooting Platform Dependencies in the Digital News Economy: Google News Initiative in India”. International Journal of Communication
• Parthasarathi, V., & Agarwal, S. (2023). Platformisation of Matchmaking: Reconfiguring Social Economies in India. In Digital Platforms and the Global South (pp. 56-73). Routledge.
• Parthasarathi, V., & Agarwal, S. (2020). Rein and laissez faire: The dual personality of media regulation in India. Digital Journalism, 8(6), 797-819.