Media

Have you ever wondered what you would find, if 24x7 news channels were shut down? Or the over flowing print journals, newspapers were all reduced to just one? NEWS!

If this sounds too cynical, open your today’s newspaper and start counting facts. Have a look at the ads and then look at the headlines. Observe how Cricket, Salman Rushdie with new arm candy, sensex and even new sex surveys find their way to the main pages with alarming regularity.

The question that comes to mind is – Who decides what we need to know? Is media dictating our culture or is our culture dictating the media?

Does it function as a medium to voice the concerns of the common man? Does the common man matter even in the most accommodative system of democracy? Let’s look at Noam Chomsky’s definition of democracy - An alternative conception of democracy is that the public must be barred from managing of their own affairs and the means of information must be kept narrowly and rigidly controlled. That may sound like an odd conception of democracy, but it's important to understand that it is the prevailing conception...

In Chomsky’s book “Manufacturing consent” he talks about the art of democracy as a means of to bring about an agreement in the masses using propaganda as a tool.

To give you an example, Hindustan Times headline reads “India beats China in battle of billionaires” This gives the masses the idea that, with India’s booming economy and growing global stature, sky is the limit with the billionaires as a token of its prosperity. That is indeed a very narrow perspective of growth isn’t it?

The other headline in HT reads “India wrap up series, but Sachin jinx continues” First, this assumes that the masses watch cricket, almost compelling them to keep a track of it.

And the headline, in just one sentence elevates Sachin’s loss to the same platter as India’s win, giving the form of both sufficient headline spaces.

Let’s look at DNA, one headline reads “Tallest building in India to come up in Dadar” How many people will benefit from this headline? Certainly the dying Vidarbha farmers or the slum dwellers a few feet away I suppose. This brilliantly orchestrates how commercialization of news has made a comfortable place in media. The rich, privileged class is thus the ‘specialized class’ that calls the shots. They may not be a majority but they take all decisions – economic, political and ideological for the masses. Walter Lippman calls these masses as a bewildered herd which needs to be controlled or they can turn dangerous.

This may seem too ominous to digest. After all, we would all like to believe that life is a big Page 3 party with the press as mild intruders with a miniscule role. We could as well avoid the larger scheme, the distortion of fact and history to live peacefully.

Broadcast media is in a league of its own. And with 24 hours news channels, it is evident that the lines between news and propaganda are blurring. “Breaking news” is the most striking (laughable even) feature of these news channels.

There is alternative media also available on the periphery but it’s hardly accessible. If you ask me, news has fallen into a commercial trap. It’s become one homogenous mass which shows no sign of pushing its own set boundaries. But again, can we change that? Do we have any power to change that if we don’t belong to the privileged class? Is our role in society redundant?

These are questions, so many of them which realistically hold no value except creating awareness. I wonder if I got my point across. I would really appreciate to get a more holistic perspective as well.

- Janvi Gandhi
janvi.87@gmail.com