Abstract
Although novel policies will be especially important for addressing grand societal challenges, how the digital transition influences the ability of governments to adopt new policies remains unclear. In this study, I explore the relationship between digitization and policy innovation to understand how the two might be related. Specifically, I study media narratives in the case of the ongoing roll-out of smart metering in India to assess whether and how this instance of digital governance has been discussed in the news. To do so, I analyze 370 articles in the largest English language daily newspaper in India using topic modelling and sentiment analysis. The findings highlight the polysemic nature of smart metering, its ability to support highly (re-)configurable and targeted policy designs, as well as some resistance to this policy innovation thus far. I discuss the implications of the findings for theory and research on digital governance and policy innovation.