The flood of scams has created a public mood against corruption. This has been well captured and packaged by media. This led to peaceful organised protests across India, sending a strong message across to the political fraternity. With modern day tools , news media are able to better grasp mood of public and put it across to the political masters.
New age media like social media sites have helped organise people and also enabled interaction with government. Even government has realised the potential and crucial ministries like finance and external affairs ministry have their presence in facebook and twitter. It provides an opportunity to provide information and also receive instant feedback from people. It also serves as a medium for greivance redressal. However there are drawbacks that arise from it like the anonymity allows people to spy or stalk on people without revealing their identity. In India, social media is limited to only upper middle class. But through the huge numbrs online it acts as a pressure group thought it doesn’t represent the majority. While traditional media involves few publishers of information, social media and internet allow anyone to publish and hence can’t be regulated. Social media in India is still in a nascent stage and its impact on society is expected to remain minimal as it is limited to only a literate minority in India. Despite the commendable work done by media in exposing the scams and making governments accountable, there are problems that exist within the media which threaten the legitimacy that they enjoy in Indian society. The recent trend of paid media, sensationalism, private treaties don’t augur well for Indian media fraternity. The true purpose of journalism is to communicating reliable, accurate facts in a meaningful context. The advent of 24X7 news channels led to intense competition in electronic media. The urge to increase their TRP ratings lead to sensationalism. Focus is now more on politics and celebrity trivia while the real issues bothering the nation are being put on backburner. Issues like malnutrition, sanitation which don’t appeal to Indian middle class, who form bulk of viewers ,were deliberately given a lookby. As a result non issues became issues. This sensationalism has lead to shallow reporting. Often little or no research is done on news item before being telecast. There is widespread manipulation, distortion of facts. The recent instance of paid media has brought to light the collusion between the politicians and journalists. This is especially rampant in the regional newspapers. Most of media houses are owned by business houses and political parties. With such ownerships structure, its difficult to have unbiased reporting. Often media is used as a tool for political vendetta. This has lead to erosion of legitimacy of indian news media. Apart from these factors, there is the issue of government control over media. Although consitution enlists freedom of expression and speech as fundamental right, often this right is violated by government by way of sensorship. Although media in India seems to be under no direct government regulation, yet most of revenue for media houses particularly in print media come from government advertisements. Governments often use this to arm twist media into providing favourable coverage to them. This has lead to curtailment of free and fair reporting. Contempt powers and defamation laws also put curbs on freedom of press. Another major concern that has emerged oflate is the media trials. This has become more rampant now with increased TV viewers in nation. The traditional judicial principle is to treat an accused as innocent until proved guilty. Yet, media coverage projects an accused guilty even before he/she is produced before court. TV anchors are turning into judges. This brings courts under undue pressure.
It is hightime that media houses introspect and take corrective measures. The major threats to Indian media arise form their limited autonomy and commercialisation and politicisation of news media. Indian media houses need to strike a balance between their business goals and the journalistic goals. Media houses should have separate research wings to conduct indepth study on problems faced by indian society. This will help identify rootcause of problems and provide solutions. Hence journalists will not just report news but also provide solution to issues.
India should setup a public broadcasting organisation onlines of public broadcasting service in US and BBC in UK. This organisation can help set the standards of journalism which may inturn improve the standards in other media organisations. More competition can also help enrich the news content. Government must reduce the entry barriers for setting up news channels. Although consitution guarantees free press, it doesn’t imply unregulated press. Any right is bound to have reasonable restrictions in interest of public. Hence media too needs to be regulated to some extent. However this regulation should be done by a regulatory body which remains independent of government.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
Das, B. (1997) "Mass Media", Report on Fifty Years of Communication Growth in India, Mimeographed.…
- 3767 Words
- 16 Pages
Powerful Essays -
In the past century, media has grown exponentially. Starting off with the newspaper, then going to the radio, then eventually the television and now to cell phones, media has become a huge role in today’s society. It is our source for news. Media has become a crucial necessity in recent times. With media, news is able to spread faster around the world than it ever has before. Media has a very important role in society, specifically with the improvements on the spread of information.…
- 1145 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
The media is undoubtedly a significant and influential aspect in modern day society. As a means of communication in a world very much advanced in technology, the media touches all types of people through various forms such as the radio, newspapers, televisions etc. The question remains: what information is left unbiased and untarnished? The people within society must sort through the many bits of information fed to them and unfortunately, in most cases, all bits of media is taken as the whole truth. The ways in which media impacts society to a great extent are through the facts it chooses to reveal, as recently seen in the case of the Tamil war in Sri Lanka. The tone in which it is presented such as the recently reported cases of Tamil protest on the streets of downtown Toronto and finally in the manner it chooses to target certain audiences, such as the case of Victoria George-Pazzano in Mexico.…
- 950 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Media sector informs the populace without bias. It acts as an anchor for many facets of a society and supports its fundamental workings, bringing out the positives and negatives of industry, making citizens’ voices audible to decision makers and most importantly, revealing and spreading economic and other information.…
- 3827 Words
- 12 Pages
Best Essays -
Media has been an integral part of the world we live in today. It has been so since World War II when Nazi Germany used different kinds of propaganda through media to portray their message to the nation. Since then many breakthroughs have been made with televisions, radios and, newspapers. Today, media is the most important element and the most organized form of communication in our modern society as a source of information, especially in category of politics and government. The media sets all kinds of trends and decides “what’s in and what’s not.” It also serves as a representative for political socialization. There are many differing opinions about the workings of the media; some negate the media and some shed positive light on the role of the media. Mobilization Theory and Media Malaise Theory are two contradicting schools of thought. While one supports the media as being a gateway for knowledge and information, the other pins it as a useless commodity. The media is supposed to mobilize the people but instead it performs malaise, which turns many people off politics, which can lead to the mass population avoiding media as a whole in the near future.…
- 1399 Words
- 6 Pages
Better Essays -
The media plays a very important role as a source of information,education and entertainment.It accommodates the world in to a single village which is saturated of media-information.…
- 848 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
Media has always played a huge role in our society. For a long time media was one of the methods of controlling people and leisure. Nowadays media is one of the main part of our lives and our society, because we use word media, to combine all sources of information. Average man is spending 4 hours a day on watching TV and reading newspapers. There're a lot of different types of information sources, all of them are specific and dedicated for different types of information. Newspapers, Internet, television, radio, and magazines are all media. The media provides information to educate, to inform or simply to entertain its audience. The importance of the media is to publish the message worldwide, so that it can become popular.…
- 2026 Words
- 9 Pages
Good Essays -
The media in India enjoys a great deal of freedom and when it is threatened, the response is vociferous. Nevertheless, there is the need to maintain a balance between free expression and other community and individual rights; hence this responsibility should not be borne by the judiciary alone, but by all those who enjoy these rights.…
- 3355 Words
- 14 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Information media become indispensable part of modern democracy. It forms the very bed rock of democracy without which democracy is an aimless, futile exercise and can never fulfill the aspirations of the people in real terms .In Democracy the government and its each wing has to perform multifarious functions with utmost responsibility. The media acts as watchdog on the working of government. It acts as a communicator between the government and people of India. It spreads relevant information and create fair public opinion and by virtue of functions it performs---- a check is automatically created over the functions of the government. Hence it rightly called the fourth pillar of democracy .i.e. Fourth Estate.…
- 284 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Media should play its role freely without the influence of any other parties or power. The media suppose to be the agent of change, development, stability, social cohesion, a platform for mental or intellectual reformation and its biggest role is as the market for any kind of information. But in reality, these roles are not fully applied as the interruption of the media owners inhabits some of its roles. As we all know, the owner has the full power towards the media that is under its control. Because of that, it gives impacts that affect our freedom to express and gain limited opinion.…
- 1802 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Media warfare is pre-eminently a democratic instrument, fashioned to dominate the mass minds and general will of complete nation or society.…
- 4749 Words
- 13 Pages
Good Essays -
EASWARI ENGINEERING COLLEGE Bharathi salai, Ramapuram, Chennai- 89 Department of English Communication skills lab PRESENTATION TOPICS 2014-2015 1. India-Emerging as major Cyber Crime Centre 2. Medical tourism in India 3. Educated Indians lack Patriotism 4.…
- 494 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
“ it is because the media are central to our everyday lives that we must study them... as social and cultural as well as political and economic dimensions of the modern world.” (Roger Silverstone, Why Study the Media? 1999.)…
- 2039 Words
- 9 Pages
Better Essays -
The Director, Board of College and University Development, the Deputy Registrar (Eligibility and Migration Section), the Director of Students Welfare, the Personal Assistants to the Vice-Chancellor, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, the Registrar and the Assistant Registrar, Administrative, Ratnagiri for information.…
- 9595 Words
- 39 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Journalism in India has evolved over time. While pre-independence era of print journalism was more focussed on instigating patriotism in people and spreading a united voice against colonial rule, post-independence journalism concentrated more on delivering truth via news to people. Modern day print media has diversified into business, sports and entertainment journalism leaving politics largely to local vernaculars. With the increased penetration of the internet, print journalism faces erosion in today’s world.…
- 1074 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays