U&ME

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

CHHATH POOJA: BHAKTI OF TODAY FOR AN AFFLUENT TOMORROW


Chhath Pooja has become my emotional anchor ever since I left my village home in 1976 and the State of Bihar in 1983. I have been sort of getting back to the SHIP DECK off and on like a bird flying high over the sea.
Can't help going to the Ghats on the Hindan Canal in Ghaziabad's Vaishali or Vsaundhara or on the Yamuna in Delhi.
The First Aragh or the Offerings to the Setting Sun has always raised a question with both cultural and spiritual moorings.

How come a region that gave to us the first ever pan Indian political empire and had some of the best universities of the time and yes the greatest sages ( Buddha & Mahavir) and scientists ever, came to worship the Setting Sun that is symbolic of the Power on its way out?

The people as embodied in their culture have not lost faith in Future Buddhas or Chandraguptas or Nalanda Vishwavidyalayas or a Deerghtama to whom is credited the famous Rigvedic hymn:
Ekoh Sadvipra Bahudha Vadanti...
( The Truth is One and only one though it is interpreted differently by different people. )

That eternal wait for a bright future is best expressed by the CHHATH POOJA wherein the glorious past is as living as the Present that is awaiting a face lift in Future.

That feeling of pan Indianness is also deeply embedded. You shouldn't be surprised when you see a sign board bannering AKHIL BHARTIYA SANGATHAN with no members from beyond the district where it is located.
A Bihari is destined to think everything that is only pan Indian with a significant future role for him/her. No separatist movement could gain ground there.

So the CHHATH POOJA is symbolic of everything that WAS good about Bihar and everything better and divine that would someday happen to it and thus to the country.

The BHAKTI of today is for the organically connected affluence of tomorrow...
It has made them unique. ..nostalgic about a better and divine future that can as on date is attainable through education only. ..an average parent goes to any length ( selling of land or jewellery or house) to ensure proper education to his or her ward. They are found in hordes in JNU, DU, IITs, JMI et al.
So a HAPPY CHHATH to us all!

In memory of Rajendra Yadav on his first death anniversary




Rajendra Yadav was not just a great critic or an author. He epitomised the democratic spirit in all his actions by nurturing dissent on the one hand articulating what he deemed fit with full force.

He was an institution unto himself. He did to hundreds of budding writers what Ezra Pound did to T S Eliot. He lives in and through many such people.

But he remains a living challenge: HAVE WE VRNTURED TO PROMOTE THE YOUNG, UNKNOWN &DIFFERENT-FROM-US? Missing you is missing what you did to many...

Monday, October 27, 2014

Understanding Media






( 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:
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
Chapter design
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



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?

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