Jagannath International Management School, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, India.
The whole of the scenario of Indian media changed when the electronic media entered the scene. Newspapers too started experimenting to retain control over their market share of the audiences. Where earlier there would be one weekly supplement at the most, newspapers launched a number of supplements and offered them in a package deal to their customers. These supplements attempted to reach out to different segments of the audience and to different informational needs ofthe reading public. This study attempts to analyze the phenomenon of supplement journalism that hit the newspaper industry in India in the wake of the liberalization of the country's economy by analyzing the variety and treatment of content of supplements of The Times of India, Delhi edition, as circulated in Gurgaon. The study reveals that the variety of supplements brought out by mainstream newspapers such as TOI helps to add the number of voices in the public domain. Till the evolution of supplements, it was only political news which captured the limelight. But with the launching of supplements voices raising issues pertaining to other aspects of society and its dynamics started entering the public domain. This, in a way, has helped in bringing mass communication closer, at least by a step, to its apotheosis, communication.
