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ABSTRACT
This study examines how the top two English-language newspapers in India constructed the entrepreneurship discourse used by online cab aggregator firm, Uber Technology Inc., in India, its second-largest market after the United States. A critical discourse analysis study of related news coverage in The Times of India and the Hindu newspapers was undertaken in three stages including an analysis of media texts, discursive practice and social practice. This paper unravels how the dominant discourses reproduced and reinforced Uber’s entrepreneurship rhetoric, embedded in the neoliberal assumption that the self-reliant, individual entrepreneur is the ideal person who will play an important role in the story of India’s economic growth. Counter-discourses that challenged such assumptions were limited and found primarily in a few opinion pieces in the Hindu newspaper. While media-centric factors such as news values and journalistic routines often privilege established sources of news, in this case, Uber officials, this study also highlights the influence of a media organization’s corporate policy and economic imperatives on news discourses. Further, this study highlights how Uber’s entrepreneurship discourse was strengthened by political actors eager to reap rewards from portraying a greater role in generating employment and attracting investments.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the editor John E Richardson and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Both the authors contributed equally to the manuscript.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Smeeta Mishra is an associate professor in the Business Ethics and Communication Group at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. Previously, she has worked at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and Bowling Green State University, Ohio, amongst others. She publishes in the areas of media representations, cyberpsychology, online communication and gender studies in international peer-reviewed journals in her field. She has also co-authored a book titled Online Communication Strategies for Managers (McGraw-Hill Education). She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. from Syracuse University, New York, and another M.A. from the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Dharma Raju Bathini is an assistant professor in the Human Resource Management Group at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. He takes a critical perspective and publishes mainly in the area of flexible work practices. He has published in reputed journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics.