Negotiating power and trust: digital government communication in India’s risk-driven networked public sphere

Abstract

This study aims to examine the strategic use of digital communication by Indian Government officials with three core objectives: to understand how it engages citizens, shapes public trust and manages crises. This study adopts an interpretive qualitative methodology and is grounded in an interpretive epistemological position. The research, therefore, explores participants’ lived experiences and their interpretative views of digital communication practices. The study involved 33 communication practitioners from various regions of India. The analysis reveals a model of negotiated digital governmentality. In this model, the state’s pastoral digital power is not absolute but is continually mediated and contested by fragmented publics and the conditions of systemic risk. The findings indicate that while authorities adeptly adapt digital strategies to enhance administrative efficiency and bolster political legitimacy, inherent tensions persist between control and authentic dialogue, and between leveraging digital tools for governance and fostering genuine democratic responsiveness. This research advances theoretical understanding by synthesising the distinct concepts of Foucault’s governmentality, Habermas’s public sphere and Beck’s risk society into a single, dynamic model that explains contemporary digital statecraft in a complex democracy. It offers the original concept of negotiated digital governmentality to capture the contested nature of digital power. This study contributes to understanding how digital governance practices shape policy legitimacy and citizen engagement in Asian democracies.