Guwahati, Sept. 12 -- In a rapidly changing, highly contested and overcrowded landscape, what can be called the mainstream media? TV channels? Radio? Newspapers, portals or other platforms? Gone are the days when only a handful of newspapers or TV channels could shape the public narrative, around which people formed their opinions and decided how to react to different socio-political developments they encountered in their day-to-day lives.

"We may be approaching an information wasteland," says Nancy Gibbs, former editor-in-chief of Time. In a webinar in January 2026, she said that the fragmentation of attention across various platforms has profound consequences. Within the media, competition for attention has made communication much more...