( Note: This was a chapter jointly written with Dr. Vartika Nanda for a book proposed by NCERT in 2009-10.)
Chapter
Two
Understanding mass media
In this chapter you will learn the
following:
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Media, mediated
communication, mass media, types of mass media, functions of mass media, mass
communication, role of gatekeeper, importance
of feedback in mass communication, public interest vs. private profit, relationship
between mass media and democracy, media as the fourth pillar of democracy, implications
of paid news, public service broadcaster, self regulation vs. government
regulation, community media, commercial media
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Chapter
design
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2.1
Introduction 2.2 Functions of mass
media 2.3 Types of mass media 2.4 The role of mass media in a
democracy 2.5 Summary 2.6 Media timeline 2.7 Review questions 2.8
Glossary
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2.1 Introduction
·
Back from day’s long boring classes of your
school, you now want to relax. Younger sisters are watching Tom & Jerry on
one of the cartoon channels and you don’t want to miss on the blow-by-blow
account of what happened in the today’s match between India and Pakistan when
you were in school. It is lunch time and your mummy summons your sisters to the
dining table and you, taking advantage of the situation, press the remote to go
to a sports channel. True, your sisters are not happy with this but they don’t
want to skip the food either.
·
The front page report of a local newspaper
surprises you with the information that the whole village gathers in the
verandah of the village headman to watch the re-runs of the very popular
serials of the 1990s: the Mahabharata & the Ramayana.
·
You have plans to buy a mobile that has latest
features such as camera, radio, Internet, and the animated games you like most.
You want to do it with your pocket money but that will take a long time. So you
decide to become part of a government-funded project that gives more than just
pocket money to students going to a nearby Jhuggi colony to help the resident
adults learn read and write.
Such experiences have
become so commonplace that we don’t even bother to think that till a few
decades ago these were unthinkable. Owning a TV set or mobile was a luxury and
subscribing to a newspaper was a status symbol to most of the urban population
of the country. Now hundreds of thousands of people may be reading the same
newspaper or watching the same programme or getting the same message on their
mobile phones or computers through the Internet.
How does all this happen?
First, there is a technology that brings the printed text or the programme or
the message to you and many like you. These are print (newspaper, magazine, newsletter,
etc.), TV and mobile respectively in our case. These technologies are thus mediating devices or media (plural of medium)
that facilitate the sending of any kind of content (text, picture,
sound, graphic or any mix of these) to any number of people. Second, generally
the same content is sent and
received at the same time.
Third, the mediated content that reaches the people is handled by a group of people who are trained in
doing so. But we don’t see them face –to-face. So there is an impersonal relationship between these
people and those who are receiving the content as newspaper readers or TV
watchers or radio listeners or Internet surfers. These handlers of information
are also known as gatekeepers of
information between receivers and various media. Fourth, unlike face –to-face
exchange of information, the response of the sender or receivers during this
process, is delayed in the case of TV, newspaper or radio though it may be fast
in the case of mobile and Internet. However, in either case, the level or
degree of response is not as reliable or intense as in the face-to-face sharing
of information. This delayed or fast response in the process of information
exchange is also known as feedback.
Activity
|
1.
Read letters to the
editor of your daily newspaper and write such a letter about the problem of
water logging in your locality.
2.
Compare the published
contents of your letter with what you wrote.
3.
In a tabular form, note
down what you like most about mobile and internet.
|
Now, should we try defining
media and mass media? Media is the plural of medium and the word refers to two
or more than two technologies or devices with the help of which information is
sent by the sender to the receiver.
Examples are telephone, microphone, CD, i-pod, etc. But these are not mass
media because information exchange is one-to-one. Thus mass media are those
technologies or devices that are capable of sending the same information,
mostly at the same time, to a large number of people living in distant
locations. Examples are newspaper, magazine, TV, radio, film, etc.
But what about mobile and
Internet which are both interactive and are capable of communicating with the large number of people simultaneously?
These are the result of coming together of computer, phone and various mass
media technologies such as radio, TV and print. This coming together of media
technologies is also known as media
convergence. Through these devices you not only receive information of
all kind-- any mix of textual, audio, pictorial and graphic information -- but
can also give your feedback immediately. Such media are known as interactive
mass media.
2.2 Functions of mass media
Mass media have become so
integral to our daily life that they are to us what water is to fish. Their
importance is realized when we have to go without them for some reasons. Can
you imagine a day without TV, newspaper, or mobile? This explains the role of
mass media in our lives both as individual and as society.
Activity
|
1.
Write a diary of your activities on the day you
used no mass media at all, e.g., newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, film, and
Internet.
2.
What problems did you face when no mass media
were available to you yesterday?
3.
Write which media did you use the most the next
day to make good the loss of yesterday?
|
All mass media
have broadly the same functions, namely: to inform, educate and entertain. Some might like to add ‘agenda setting’,‘ providing forum for debates’ , ‘
serving as public watchdog’, and, ‘providing avenues of profit to the
investors’ to it but broadly these four are offshoots of the basic functions of
informing, educating and entertaining the users of media.
Let’s have a look at the
following situation: you as a student are eager to know whether the school is
closed tomorrow in the wake of outbreak of swine flu fever in the city. This
decision is generally taken not by the school principal. The district
administration does it. Once the district collector or the deputy commissioner
has taken, how will he communicate it to the parents worried about the health
of their school-going children? No doubt, the mass media channels are the obvious
choice.
We all know that prevention
is better than cure. Now how best to implement this in the case of swine flue
that has become a pandemic? It is possible only if people know the ways of
preventing the occurrence of the disease. How can they be educated about this
in a short span of time to minimize the spread of the virus? The obvious answer
is: mass media.
Rich or poor, child or
grown up, boy or a girl, student or a teacher—each one of you wants a break
from your activities. This is to recharge yourself with energy to get back to
doing what is routine or normal. Till a century ago, people mostly entertained
themselves by hunting, swimming, horse riding, singing and dancing. They either
directly engaged themselves in these activities or watched others engaged in
them from close distance. Now- a -days, we turn to movie theatres, TV, radio,
book, newspapers or more recently mobile and Internet for entertaining
ourselves.
Activity
|
1.
How do you entertain
yourself when you don’t want to study? Write a letter to your friend about
it.
2.
What do you find most
interesting: watching a movie on your home TV set or playing a video game on
mobile? Find out what your classmates like the most and why.
3.
Do you know anybody whose
pastime is hunting or horse riding? Where does he live? Near a jungle, in the
hilly areas, a town in the plains or somewhere else? How many people around
you are like him?
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2.3.1 Types of mass media
The beginnings of mass
media are traced to the publication of the Bible in 1456 by Johannes Gutenberg
using movable metal type. Later known as the Gutenberg Press, this technology
was to change the way people live, think, act, eat, and behave. Since then mass
media have evolved through various stages of Print (Book, Newspaper, Magazine,
etc.), Film, Broadcast (Radio & TV), and interactive technologies such as Mobile and Internet over
the last 550 years. These technologies are nothing but broadly the various
types of media. Let us have a look at the distinctive features of each media
type.
Print media
Print media refer to the
media which use paper to disseminate information in the form of text, pictures
or graphics. These include books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, and
newsletters. They have traditionally played a very vital role in the growth of
civilization worldwide. In India
as elsewhere, these were important tools in the hands of those fighting for
freedom against the British. At the same time, the social reformers like Raja
Rammohun Roy, Pandit Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Pandita Ramabai and Jyoti Ba
Phule used newspapers and other forms of mass media in their fight against
social evils such as the Sati System (burning of widows alive on the pyre of
their dead husbands), Widow Remarriage, and Caste System. In fact, the struggle
against the social evils became the precursor to the freedom movement. Some of
the newspapers started by the social reformers and the leaders of the freedom
movement continue to be published till today. It was during this period that
Indian language newspapers came to be used as the most important tool to
associate masses with both social reform and the freedom movements. Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi used it
as a tool to awaken the masses. Rebels like Bhagat Singh wrote numerous letters
to the ‘letter to the editor’ section and got his concerns heard.
For over 50 years after
independence, the print media enjoyed the top position, both in terms of impact
and revenue generation. But for the last few years, especially after 1991 when
the process of economic liberalization set in, the other mass media vehicles
have registered much faster growth and have become more serious contenders as
sources of information and entertainment to the people. Worldwide print media have
been overtaken by radio, TV and Internet and are declining except in a few developing
countries such as India.
Despite all this, books, newspapers, and magazines continue to command
significant public interest, especially of the elderly and the neo-literates,
and still constitute a sizeable chunk of mass media globally. In India they come
next only to TV but this situation is not likely to continue for long.
Activity
|
1.
What kind of books you like most and why?
Participate in a group discussion on contribution of printing press to the
modern day world.
2.
Which are the newspapers and magazines published
from your city? Make a list of all these and find out the names of their
founder-editors and the years when they started publishing.
3.
Make a list of front page headlines of an
English daily newspaper and find out if there are Indian language words, say
Hindi or Tamil, used in these headlines.
|
Film
The film medium or the motion picture films have a
history spanning over a hundred years, from the latter part of
the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Motion
pictures developed gradually from the silent to talkies era and have now become
one of the most important tools of entertainment. In the last century, there was hardly any aspect of life that
remained untouched by this medium. Though television has a lot in common with
films, the latter continue to enjoy undisputed superiority in terms of
creativity and the capacity to portray the larger-than-life images of their chosen
subjects.
The American film industry, popularly
known as the Hollywood, has practically dominated the global film market for
more than half a century. It has also been used as an instrument of militray
propaganda ever since the world war II. But the Indian film industry, also
known as the Bollywood, has stood on its own and leads the world in terms of
the number of films produced each year, i.e., nearly 800. Notably this
reprsents films made in more than two dozen languages and dialects of the
country.
Activity
|
1.
What was the last film that
you watched in a movie theatre? Briefly note down the difference in impact
that the same film had on you when you watched it on TV.
2.
Compare and contrast the
two films—one Indian and the other foreign—that you like most.
3.
Make a list of Indian language films that
were said to be inspired by the Hollywood movies.
4.
Write
about a film which made you feel as if it were close to the small struggles
of your life or those of someone you know. Do you feel that the film had more
dramatic elements as compared to those in your life?
|
Broadcast media
Broadcast media refer to radio and TV
that receive audio and/ or video signals of programmes transmitted through
cable or satellite or a combination of both. The audience of these programmes may
be the general public or a relatively focused section of public , such as
children or young adults. The term "broadcast" originally referred to
the sowing of seeds by scattering them over a wide field. It was adopted by
early radio engineers in the USA to refer to dissemination of radio signals.
Broadcasting forms a very large segment of the mass media. Broadcasting to a
very small section of public is called narrowcasting.
The broadcast media occupy the centre
stage in today’s world. Its influence has reduced the size and influence of
other traditional media such as films and print to a considerable extent. The
print media presunes lieracy whereas radio and TV don’t depend upon it for
their survival and growth. Also, the capacity of broadcst media to engage the
users is quite high because of their audio-visual nature. The written word has
less impact on human mind than spoken words and much less than the spoken words
accompanied by the related pictures. Another advantage with radio and TV are their portability and ease
of use vis a vis motion picture films. The increasing influence of TV has
forced films to piggy ride the former as is evident from the screening of
movies on television. Even newspapers and magazines have been forced to use
more pictures to cater to the tastes of readers who have been brought up
watching television.
Activity
|
1.
Pay attention to the time
you spend watching TV or listening to your radio. Compare the total time so
spent with that spent on reading your course books and doing the assignments.
2.
Watch a wildlife programme on
TV and compare it with a newscast aired on a 24-hour news channel. What are
the similarities and differences?
|
Interactive media
Interactive media mean broadly the new
media that have been made possibe by the technological convergence of the
features of tradional mass media such as print and broadcast. Examples are
mobile and Internet that carry text, still pictures, video, and graphics all at
the same time. In addition, they allow active participation by the users, hence
the name interacive. You can change size, color, direction,
or sound volume. You can also click, drag, hide, replay, or enlarge. You can
ask questions as we do on www.ask.com; search for information through keywords as we
do on www.google.com; send and receive
messages instantly through e-mails using various portals such as Yahoo!, Gmail
or Hotmail; and, through SMS( Short Messaging Service) on the mobile. This
doesn’t mean that other media such as newspaper, magazine, TV and radio are not
interactive. However, the degree of interactivity is the highest in new media
such as mobile and Internet. The degree of interactivity is measured by the
speed and the ease of response of the media users.
Many social networking sites such as
Orkut and Facebook offer a wide range of interactivity amongst people of
similar interests. In this sense, interactive media have opened the floodgates to
the birth of communities whose members may not belong to the same country,
region, village or caste but have a lot in common in terms of their likes and
dislikes. They spend a lot of time chatting or communicating online though they
may never meet or get to see each other. Such media, also known as new age
digital media, have given rise to interactive advertising that allows online
purchase of goods and services from anywhere in the world. You can order the
purchase of a product by just clicking on its advertisement on the online
edition of a TV news channel, e.g., www.ndtv.com
or that of a newspaper www.thehindu.com.
| Activity |
1.
How much time do you spend on the
Internet? Make a list of all your activities from researching the relevant
material for the home work to e-mailing and chatting.
2.
What do you do most on your mobile:
making or receiving calls, sending SMSes, chatting, booking cinema tickets,
ordering food from a nearby restaurant, listening to music, or something
else?
3.
What do you trust more as a source
of information: mobile or Internet? Why?
|
2.3.2 In terms of goals and ownership, the media
can be categorized as public service, commercial and community.
Public service media
Public
service media refer to public funded media such as Doordarshan and
All India Radio whose main objective is to cater to the public needs and tastes
irrespective of whether their operations make profits or not. The contents of
these media are decided as per the norms set by the government directly or indirectly
by a public funded agency such as Prasar Bharti in India and BBC in Britain. Such
an agency is assumed to represent the interests of the citizens at large.
Commercial media
The commercial media also
produce contents that are in tune with the interests of their audience but here
the interests of only those sections of audience decide the production of
contents that ensure profitability of the newspaper, radio or TV stations. Thus
the contents so generated have to cater to the interests of the people who are
capable of buying the goods and services advertised through these media. Notably
most of the revenue generated by mass media is not through subscription fees of
the newspaper or TV connections but through the money paid by the advertisers
who are also the producers of goods and services advertised in the newspapers
or on TV channels.
Community media
Community media such as
community radio stations are run with the aim of serving the community
interests. For example, a campus radio station operated by a university
broadcasts programmes that cater to the interests of the students, staff and
faculty of the university. It also airs programmes that promote literacy and
health awareness among people living within 8-10 km radius of the radio station.
However, the operators of such media are allowed to recover their costs over a
period of time without compromising on the community interests. Accordingly,
many universities and institutes are allowed to own and operate low power
50-Watt community radio stations. To name a few, Indian Institute of Mass
Communication (IIMC), Delhi;
Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi;
CDL University, Sirsa; and, Manav Rachna
International University,
Faridabad, are
operating community radio stations. Many others are in the pipeline.
Activity
|
1.
Listen to the morning programmes of AIR, a
private FM station and a community radio in your city and list the strengths
and weaknesses of each of these programmes on a chart paper.
2.
Supposing your school is the best school in the
home town and caters to the needs of its 10-lakh population, write an
application on behalf of the school authorities to the district collector to
forward the school’s longstanding demand for a community radio station to the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
|
2.4
Role of Media in a Democracy
·
A sting operation on a political leader taking
bribe in return for his promise to help a supplier of arms to get the Defense
Ministry contracts.
·
The Chief of an Indian IT multinational company is
arrested by the police for misappropriating the company funds.
These
are the examples of the powerful and the rich being exposed by the media for doing
what is illegal or unethical. This illustrates that the role of media is to
keep a watch on those who have been entrusted with power or money that have to
be used essentially in the public interest. Thus, by keeping an eye on those
who have been vested with political and economic powers, media act as the
watchdog of democracy. In other words, beyond the formal three pillars of democracy—
legislature, executive and judiciary—media also provide an informal but the
much needed system of checks and balances. It is for this reason that in the 18th
century Europe, especially France and Britain, the Press was characterized as
the Fourth Estate alongside the other three Estates or branches of government: the
Clergy (representing religious authority), the Nobility (representing rulers
and the armed forces at their command) and the Commons (representing peasantry
and all those who supported the first two Estates.
But
this relationship is not one way. Independent media can thrive only in a
democracy that by definition guarantees freedom of expression which is put into
practice by creating an environment that respects and gives equal opportunities
to those with different points of view from those in positions of power and
authority. That is why, in every functioning democracy, opposition parties
enjoy a special position so that diverse and even conflicting views get their
due articulation within and beyond the four walls of the parliament. In this
sense, independent media, particularly news media, are as integral to a healthy
democracy as the opposition parties because of their ability to act as a
platform for the expression of diverse and opposing views. In fact, news media
can often take on the role of the opposition when they criticize the policies
and programmes of the party or a coalition of parties in power. Thus media not
only hold a
mirror to society reflecting what is good, bad, ugly, and awkward in it but
also interprets and analyzes the implications of all this.
In its classical form,
news media stand for the individual or groups pitched against the State and for
the weak against the powerful. In this way, they ensure the existence of
plurality of views and expose of corruption and hypocrisy.
Activity
|
1.
Make a list of news
stories whose publication or broadcast have strengthened democracy around
you.
2.
Also make a list of
TV news stories that you think are examples of the channel’s deviation from its
watch-dog role.
|
To
better understand the relationship between democracy and media at the ground
level, let’s try answering a question: what images come to our mind when we talk
of democracy:
·
TV news pictures of parliamentarians raising their
voices inside the Lok Sabha or the Rajya Sabha;
·
people standing in long queues to cast their votes
on the election day; or,
·
your local MP or MLA campaigning for his re-election
from the same constituency?
Democracy
means all this and much more. It is a process of electing representatives through
fair and free voting. In India,
these elected representatives are collectively called Parliament at the national
level and Legislative Assembly at the state level. Both the bodies are
collectively also known as the legislature
or the first pillar of democracy. The job of the legislature is to debate and
make laws to rule the country as required by the constitution. Now to rule the
country, a government or the executive
is set in place. This is done by the party or a coalition of parties commanding
the support of the majority of elected representatives. The representatives not
in majority form the opposition and are required by the constitution to provide
constructive criticism of the policies and actions of the government. The
executive is also known as the second pillar of democracy. Here a third pillar
of democracy is also required--the judiciary whose task is to ensure
that the laws made by the legislature and their implementation by the executive
are not against the letter and spirit of the constitution that is the source of
power to all these three pillars.
However,
directly or indirectly, the constitutions of democracies worldwide have provisions
for the existence of news media that have the social responsibility of keeping
an eye on the legislature, executive,
and judiciary--- the three formal pillars of democracy. As a result, the news
media are also called the ‘fourth pillar’ of democracy. In India there is
no special mention of media rights in the constitution though the Article 19
(1A) guarantees to its citizens the Right to the Freedom of Expression. Under
the same right the media take upon itself the task of expressing the views of
not only those who manage media institutions but also of others who don’t
manage and own them, i.e., the citizens at large.
This
implies that the mass media helps a common citizen to form opinions about the
issues that concern him as an individual, the community of which he is a
member, or the country of which he is a citizen. Thus, mass media create an
informed citizenry through explaining, commenting and criticizing the acts of
the other three pillars of democracy, namely the legislature, the executive and
the judiciary. Otherwise, how else the citizens would come to know of the deeds
or misdeeds of an MLA, MP, minister, government official, or of unscrupulous
businessmen? Media therefore empowers the common man by making him aware of his
rights and duties, about what is going on around him. All this helps him take
an informed and better decision when he goes to cast his vote.
Newspapers,
news magazines, TV or radio news channels in a democratic country report and
comment on what goes on around us and thus provide us with the freedom to
choose from the candidates of competing political parties with different policies
for the country’s economic, social and educational well being. Conversely, authoritarian governments thrive
on unchecked power and don’t tolerate media giving expression to the views of
those who oppose the government policies and actions.
Activity
|
1.
What do you know
about the different political parties and their leaders of your parliamentary
constituency? What is your source of information: your parents, friends or
their coverage by different news media such as newspapers, TV or radio
channels?
2.
Write about a
newspaper published from your home town that is identified with a political
party, irrespective of whether that party is in or out of power.
|
The
media coverage of the 9/11 terror attack on the World Trade Centre (September 11,
2009; USA) and the 26/11 terror attack in the Indian city of Mumbai on November
11, 2008 sensitized the people of both the countries in particular and of the
whole world in general to the need to review the government policies framed to
address the problem of terrorism. Under public pressure, the concerned
governments had to revise their policies dealing with terrorism. Notably, there
has been no 9/11 type attack in the USA since 2001 because the
government had to take stringent measures to ensure internal security. The
incident also prepared the American citizens and the visiting foreign nationals
to be ready to put up with intense security checks wherever and whenever the
situation demanded.
Activity
|
1.
Bollywood actor
Shahrukh Khan was detained for hours at a US airport and was made to
undergo intense security check. Was this an act of humiliation targeting an
Indian superstar or just a routine matter?
2.
Have Indian news
media failed to create an informed public opinion against terrorism unlike
their US counterparts even after the December 6 , 2002 attack on parliament
or 26/11( November 11, 2008) attack in
Mumbai?
|
But media don’t limit its criticism to the traditional
three pillars of democracy. They also criticize themselves and the damaging
acts of the people at large. For example, they exposed the false reporting by
another TV channel of an alleged child prostitution case involving an innocent
female school teacher in a government school in Delhi or vehemently attacked the burning of
buses by villagers to get their unreasonable demands met by the government. The
feedback system of letters to the editors in newspapers and phone-ins in TV
news channels ensure that different and even conflicting voices get proper
articulation. There is hardly a policy of the government or actions of the
private sector giants that don’t invite media criticism.
The role of media in a democracy like India need not
be over emphasized. In a country with more than a hundred crore population that
speaks over 2500 languages and dialects and follows almost all the major faiths
of the world, the media have to act as a platform that is accessible to every
section of society, particularly the marginalized and the impoverished. That
mass media in India
have played that role reasonably well is evident from the fact that transfer of
power from one political party or alliance to another has been smooth. This was
not possible without the creation of an informed citizenry ever since the
country got independence from Britain
in 1947. This becomes clear when we compare the health of Indian democracy with
that of other countries, in our immediate neighbourhood and elsewhere, which
became independent around the same time as we did.
Activity
|
1.
Do you recall a newspaper or a TV channel apologizing to its audiences
for wrongfully damaging the reputation of a person? Make a list of such
unfair and incorrect representation of facts by various news media and send
the same to their editors.
2.
Find out the Asian democratic countries which became independent after
the World War II. Compare and contrast
the state of freedom the mass media enjoy there with that prevalent in India.
|
However, democracy is an ever evolving system
accepting no full stops. Everyday it throws up new challenges that demand fresh
solutions from its vigilant citizens. For example, the concerns expressed by
various individuals and organizations about the alleged ‘package deal’ between
political parties and news media organizations for giving the desired coverage to
them during the parliamentary and assembly elections in 2009, need to be addressed
properly. This practice of ‘package deal’, if it exists and continues, has
ominous implications for the freedom of expression in the country. Critics go to the extent of saying that in the name of public interest,
news media have begun serving the commercial interests of their owners today. More
so after onset of liberalization and globalization, the threat to the freedom
of media is not as much from the State as is from the giant corporations having
ownership across industries and countries
Presenting advertisement in the form of news, also
known as paid news, is against the basic foundations of democracy as it dilutes
the watchdog-role of news media. Should any law breaking person who is also
contesting elections for a seat in the parliament go scot-free just because he paid
the news media not to publish stories about his misdeeds? If so, how will the
citizens make informed decisions about who to vote for? Will such a state of
affairs be good for the democracy in our country where illiteracy and poverty
continue to be major obstacles in the way of all round development? If such
people form a sizable chunk of parliamentarians someday, will they care to give
voice to the genuine demands of the poor and the needy?
These are the questions that demand urgent attention
of those who operate and own media organizations. A code of conduct that is
already in place in the name of media ethics for self-regulation should be
strictly followed failing which they are likely to invite government
intervention which is not always known to be a better remedy. Also, it is in
this context that the discussion about the role of a public service broadcaster
acquires importance both for its efficacies and inefficiencies.
Both Lok Sabha TV and Doordarshan are the public
service broadcasters. Their main focus is public interest, not profit. Though
they too have business concerns like the private sector TV news channels but profits
are not allowed to surpass the public interest. However, in most of the
democracies the public service broadcasters face the charge of presenting the
interests of the party in power as the national interest to the relative or
complete disregard of the opposing views.
Activity
|
1.
Read a newspaper for a week and identify the stories you think are paid
items? Give reasons in support of your view point.
2.
There is a controversy surrounding the proposed Media Content
Regulation Bill in India.
Do you favour the passing of such a bill in the parliament and why?
3.
In India,
what is the share of sitting MPs with criminal past? How do you know about
them?
4.
Watch Lok Sabha TV and NDTV 24X 7 for a week before the voting day in
your parliamentary constituency and compare the election reports aired on
them.
|
Review
questions
1. What are medium,
media and mass media?
2. Who is a
gatekeeper in media?
3. What are
different types of mass media?
4. How are
interactive media different from traditional mass media?
5. What is mediated
communication?
6. What is mass
communication? What are the functions of mass media?
7. What is the role
of feedback in mass communication?
8. What is the role
of media in a democracy?
9. What are the
similarities between a public service broadcaster and a community radio
station?
10. How is media-industry
different from other industries?
11. What is
concentration of media ownership? What are its implications for a democracy?
12. Why does
profit-motive need to be balanced with public interest in the media sector?
13. Is a government
or an independent agency required to regulate media content?
14. Identify the
milestones in the history of media in India.
Glossary
·
Advertisement
·
Agenda setting
·
Bollywood
·
Commercial media
·
Community media
·
Concentration of media ownership
·
Feedback
·
Film
·
Fourth Estate
·
Fourth pillar of democracy
·
Gatekeeper
·
Globalization
·
Interactive media
·
Internet
·
Liberalization
·
Magazine
·
Mass communication
·
Mass media
·
Media
·
Mediated communication
·
News
·
Newspaper
·
Paid news
·
Public service broadcaster
·
Radio
·
TV
