Who Gets the Front Page? Content Analysis of Lok Sabha 2024 Coverage in Four English and Hindi Dailies

Who Gets the Front Page? is an MJMC dissertation that uses quantitative content analysis to compare how four major dailies — two English (The Times of India and The Hindu) and two Hindi (Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala) — covered the 2024 Lok Sabha election on their front pages between the day the Model Code of Conduct came into force (16 March 2024) and counting day (4 June 2024).

The front page is a newspaper's most deliberate editorial statement: what leads, what is pictured and what is left off tells readers what the paper thinks matters. The study asks whether coverage focused on issues (jobs, prices, farmers, welfare, security) or on the horse race (who is ahead, rallies, alliances, personalities), which sources were quoted, how tone towards the major alliances differed, and whether English and Hindi papers behaved differently.

A constructed-week sample (two constructed weeks = 14 issues per paper, 56 front pages) keeps the workload manageable while avoiding weekday bias. Every election-related front-page item is coded on a structured coding sheet with a codebook; a second coder independently codes 20% of the sample and agreement is checked with Cohen's kappa. Differences between papers and languages are tested with chi-square in SPSS.

The bundle gives you the research questions, sampling frame, codebook categories, reliability procedure, analysis plan, chapter scheme, a 12-slide presentation and a viva bank.

Abstract

Newspapers remain influential in setting the agenda of Indian elections, especially in the Hindi belt where Hindi dailies have very large circulations. This study analyses front-page coverage of the 2024 Lok Sabha election in The Times of India, The Hindu, Dainik Jagran and Amar Ujala (Delhi editions) from 16 March to 4 June 2024. Using two constructed weeks per paper, all election-related front-page items are coded for story type, prominence, dominant frame (issue vs horse race), primary source, tone towards the major alliances, parties and leaders mentioned, and visuals. Inter-coder reliability is established with Cohen's kappa on a 20% subsample. Chi-square tests compare papers and languages. The findings describe how the four papers constructed the election for readers on their most visible page.

Introduction

Agenda-setting theory (McCombs and Shaw, 1972) argues that the media may not tell people what to think, but are stunningly successful in telling them what to think about. Framing research adds that how a story is packaged — as a contest or as a policy question — shapes how readers interpret it. Election campaigns are the moment when both processes are most visible, and the front page is where they are concentrated.

Review gap

Indian election-coverage studies often focus on television debates or social media, or analyse a single newspaper. Comparative, reliability-tested analysis of English and Hindi front pages across the full campaign period is less common, especially at the master's level where most studies skip inter-coder reliability.

Research questions

• RQ1: How much front-page space did each paper give to election coverage?
• RQ2: Was coverage dominated by issue frames or horse-race frames, and does this differ by paper and language?
• RQ3: Whose voices (party leaders, officials, experts, citizens) were used as primary sources?
• RQ4: Did tone towards the two major alliances differ across papers?
• RQ5: Which leaders appeared most often in front-page visuals?

Feasibility

E-paper archives and library files for all four papers are accessible; 56 front pages yield roughly 300–450 codable items; coding takes about 6 weeks; SPSS is available in the department lab. The total timeline is 20 weeks.

During a general election, a newspaper's front page signals which issues, parties and leaders deserve the reader's attention. In a multilingual media system, English and Hindi dailies serve different readerships and may construct the same election very differently — one as a debate on policy, another as a contest of personalities. Claims about "biased" or "issue-less" coverage are common in public debate but are usually based on impressions rather than systematic evidence.

This study addresses that gap by conducting a systematic, reliability-tested content analysis of front-page election coverage in two English and two Hindi dailies across the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign period. It measures the volume, framing, sourcing, tone and visual presence of election coverage and tests whether patterns differ significantly by newspaper and by language, providing evidence rather than impressions for discussions about election journalism.

In scope

• Front pages only (page 1, including jacket pages where the news front page is page 3, recorded as such) of the Delhi editions of four dailies.
• Period: 16 March 2024 (Model Code of Conduct in force) to 4 June 2024 (counting day).
• Two constructed weeks per paper (14 issues × 4 papers = 56 front pages).
• Unit of analysis: every election-related news item, photo or graphic on the front page.

Out of scope

• Inside pages, editorials, opinion pages and advertisements (except to record full-page front ads that displace news).
• Television, digital-only or social-media coverage.
• Claims about the intent or ownership motives of newspapers — the study describes content, not reasons.
• Effects on voters; no audience survey is included.

Research design

A quantitative content analysis (Riffe, Lacy & Fico) with a descriptive-comparative design.

Population and sampling

• Population: all front pages of the four Delhi editions between 16 March and 4 June 2024.
• Constructed-week sampling: for each paper, randomly select one Monday, one Tuesday … one Sunday from the period to form one constructed week; repeat for a second week. Riffe, Aust and Lacy (1993) showed that constructed weeks represent a daily newspaper more efficiently than consecutive days. The same dates are used for all four papers so comparisons are fair.
• Additional purposive dates (reported separately): the day after each polling phase and counting day are coded as a supplementary sample, not mixed with the constructed weeks.

Coding sheet (main variables)

Reliability

A second trained coder independently codes a random 20% of items. Cohen's kappa is computed for each variable; κ ≥ .70 is treated as acceptable, and variables below that are redefined and recoded.

Analysis (SPSS)

Frequencies and percentages; cross-tabulations by paper and language with chi-square tests of independence and Cramér's V for effect size; column-centimetre means compared with one-way ANOVA or Kruskal–Wallis.

Timeline (20 weeks)

Review and codebook (1–4) · pilot coding and revision (5–6) · sampling and collection (7–8) · coding (9–13) · reliability (14) · analysis (15–16) · writing (17–19) · submission and viva preparation (20).