Audience Discourse on Political Videos of Indian Youtube Channels: A Study of Select Legal-Political Event.

Social media has ingrained itself into our daily lives, and the journalism profession is no exception. A large number of journalists and individuals launched their own channels on YouTube. YouTube channels frequently receive likes, views, and comments from the public, despite not being the same as 24-hour news stations.

This study aims to examine the internet discourse around a specific legal-political event. That event is the Supreme Court's ruling on electoral bonds—by examining the comments made on Indian YouTube news channels comments sections. The YouTube channels—that is, those channels that post political videos—will be chosen by the researcher.

YouTube subscribers were used to determine the channels which were chosen. For this study, the top five Indian YouTube news channels with the highest subscriber count were selected. The researcher watched the YouTube videos on Electoral Bonds scheme judgement and after watching the videos, the researcher examined the comments of the users and did a thematic analysis. These YouTube channels are 1) The Lallantop, 2) NMF News, 3) Ravish Kumar Official, 4) The Wire, 5) First Post. After analysing the comments, the researcher found out the following themes: 1) praising the judiciary, 2) praising the coverage of the issue, 3) sarcasm against the journalists.

Videos of the Supreme Court's ruling on electoral bonds scheme was selected because of its civic engagement and democracy. The elections are an important part of the democracy and this particular scheme it had an impact on all political fundraising because the entire programme was declared unlawful by the Court.

This research attempts to understand the internet discourse surrounding the Supreme Court's decision on Electoral Bonds.