Archive · 30 Jul 2026
CJP Coverage: News vs Social Media Sentiment Gap
In July 2024, a student protest called the Cockroach Janta Party happened in India.
The news on TV and online was mostly sad and negative, but people on YouTube were mostly happy and hopeful.
Four YouTube creators got more views than all the TV news channels combined.
Digital news sites wrote more about the protest than older TV channels.
The biggest surprise was that the protest got a lot of attention only after the World Cup ended, because the World Cup had taken everyone's attention for a month.
This study shows that the news did not match what most people felt or what moments mattered most to them.
News coverage of the CJP protests was largely grim for most of July 2024.
YouTube comments stayed upbeat, with four creators driving 205 million views.
Digital-native news sites published more articles than legacy broadcasters.
Audience sentiment shifted from anger to relief as the protest progressed.
The protest’s attention spiked after the FIFA World Cup ended, taking the space left by the tournament.
- Who
- Indian news outlets, YouTube creators, and the online audience
- What
- Analysis of coverage and sentiment of the CJP protests
- When
- 1–31 July 2024
- Where
- India
- Why
- To show the mismatch between news coverage and public sentiment
- Event
- Cockroach Janta Party protests
- Duration
- 70 days (July 2024)
- Key YouTube creators
- Dhruv Rathee, Ravish Kumar, Akash Banerjee, Samdish Bhatia
- Total YouTube views
- 205 million
- Top news outlet article count
- ThePrint 102
- Top broadcaster view count
- 32 million