11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
31 March 2014
Our time, as New Media theorist Dan Gillmor points out, is witnessing the first draft of history being written, in part, by the
former audience. We have come a long way from McLuhan’s original moment — we take it for granted that the medium
transforms itself into content in the frenzy of events. With the political theatre open 24/7 during the General Elections in India,
contemporary media cannot but play out the drama. ‘Ethics’ has long been a museum term in the media business, and it does
not surprise us any longer when competent journalists are disgraced and shown the door for taking a stand. In the era of empty
rhetoric and ideology sale, what can bring forth a responsible dynamic within the media? In this week’s Inter-actions, BRP
Bhaskar assesses the terrain, from dominant mediums to regulatory boards, economic structures to educational institutions. In
her response, Shashwati Goswami deplores the entertainment turn taken by most media, and warns against the danger of an
imminent fatigue that might render the entire mediascape redundant.
Debate
Hold the cursor on the illustrations to display animations and descriptions.
A Reality Check
BRP Bhaskar
The Indian media landscape
today presents a curiously variegated picture.
Television, which is now the primary source of
information on local, national and international
developments, seems very vibrant but a close look
reveals it to be a more flamboyant and flippant
medium than factual. Newspapers, which have built
up a fair reputation for professionalism over two
and a half centuries – thanks to the early editors’
commitment to certain values and concerns for
issues that matter – are fighting hard to avert the
disaster that has overtaken their Western
counterparts. The new media, which are still in their
infancy, have opened up a world for those who
earlier did not have access to any kind of mass
media – they can now communicate with anyone
On Media Fatigue
Shashwati Goswami
Media in independent India
has been growing and expanding in a state of policy
vacuum from its inception. There has been no
written policy envisaging the relationship of the
growth of media with that of national development.
The growth, if any, occurred either due to political
patronage or as a reaction to a certain context or
development. For example, radio or television
stations were set up in those places where a direct
control from Delhi was easier. Stations were set up
in Punjab after partition, in Jammu and Kashmir
after the first battle over control of Kashmir, and in
the Northeast after the 1962 Chinese aggression.
That situation changed with the economic reforms
of the 1990s. The flood gate of media control was
released, leading to the phenomenal growth of
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
2/8
11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
who cares to listen.
media within the following decades.
There are nearly 800 television channels today in
India
Are the recommendations of The Press Council
up to date with today’s media practices?
The regulatory scene is multi-centred, too. The
Press Council, established by law, decades ago, to
deal with complaints against the print media, is still
there, but newspapers do not take it seriously any
longer. They know it is toothless and do not accord
it the respect which they once gave it. Its inability
to tackle the pernicious issue of paid news testifies
to its ineffectiveness. The electronic media is
without a statutory regulatory mechanism. When
there was talk of creating one, broadcasters
hurriedly devised something in the name of selfregulation, which is no regulation at all. They
unwittingly revealed their warped concept of media
freedom when they held out a threat to black out
Arvind Kejriwal, who had enraged them by talking
of links between some news channels, a corporate
leviathan and partisanship in the ongoing electoral
battle. The social media, arguably the freest
elsewhere in the world, is potentially subject to the
most anti-democratic control in India, under a law
which vests lower ranking cops with the authority
to nab unwary users on flimsy grounds. The entire
system cries for healthy self-regulation under a
statutory framework.
Hartosh Singh Bal recently left his position as
political editor in Open Magazine, highlighting the
tensions between editorial and managerial voices
The media is afflicted with problems that stem from
the state of the society as well as its own structural
weaknesses. The Press Commission, which studied
the relationship between owners and editors in the
1950s in the light of industrialists’ acquisition of
control over newspapers, recognised the owner’s
Though we can call it growth of media in general,
the effect has been more revolutionising for
television than for any other platform. The contrast
is rather obvious, as India had been a late entry into
the field of television (only in 1959). Private
television stations mushroomed in such a way that
as of 29 March 2014, according to the I&B
Ministry website, there are 792 permitted satellite
television channels, of which 392 are news and
current affairs channels, and the rest 400,
entertainment-based channels.
But the important question is, with this growth in
numbers, are the people getting choices in content,
and what exactly does the content consist of? A
close look will show that media content has become
more about entertainment and reality shows than
the ‘real’ issues inflicting the society. It seems that
the news channels are also convinced that only
entertainment gets the desired eye-balls. This
challenge of the ‘only entertainment’ television was
very quickly accepted by the print and the radio.
The print redesigned itself with almost 70%
entertainment (barring a very few) and radio as
100% of it, in the form of private FM channels. It
has not helped that the government had not allowed
news and current affairs in private FM channels as
well as ‘in incubation’ community radio.
While analysing this deluge of entertainment in
media, Erik Barnouw said that “entertainment has
the merit not only of being suited to helping sell
goods; it is an effective vehicle for hidden
ideological messages” (The Sponsor, 1978).
Herman and Chomsky called entertainment the
contemporary equivalent of the Roman “games of
circus;” which diverts the public from politics and
generates a political apathy that becomes helpful to
preserve the status quo. It is undeniable that
television has a very strong role in constructing
opinions about people and events. In the Third
World, it is rather a constructed space moderated by
the state and the market. This has given birth to
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
3/8
11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
right to lay down the newspaper’s policy but sought
to immunise the editor against interference in his
day-to-day functioning. If the state could not find a
way to rein in the owners even when its proclaimed
goal was a socialistic pattern of society, how can it
do so in the era of globalisation, which has made
everything purchasable, the only thing to be
negotiated being the price?
In some countries, ownership is not a contentious
issue, since managerial control vests in professional
publishers just as editorial control vests in
professional journalists. Most Indian newspapers
have combined editorial and managerial functions
in the owner, an arrangement that helps avert
conflict between the two. The snag is that the
owner-editor invariably takes decisions on
managerial rather than editorial considerations.
While many newspapers have corporate structures,
within their walls, feudal values and ways of
functioning prevail. Ironically, the pattern is no
different even in the electronic media sector, with
its share of journalists-turned-entrepreneurs.
With the denigration, devaluation and even
disappearance of the editor, professionalism is
under severe strain in the print media. The
commercial success of the Murdoch formula, which
holds that the newspaper is just another product
made to earn profit – a view the intelligent reader
cannot accept as he knows the newspaper
influences him in a way no other product does – has
put practitioners of professional values under
pressure. Talk of journalistic ethics has little
relevance when newspaper owners put the seller
above the producer and enter into private treaties
with corporate entities. Since the media is an
institution of Western origin, the tendency to ape
Western models is understandable. However, the
what Adorno had called the culture industry. Here,
culture is apolitical and bereft of ideological and
philosophical understanding, more for plain
entertainment rather than preservation of heritage
and tradition. This outlook desensitises generations
of citizens to genuine issues and creates a
homogenised culture, which is unhealthy for a
multi-cultural country like India.
In the process, we see a lot of disparate and
somewhat cacophonic programmes that leave most
of us confused and tired. It is interesting to observe
how media picks up an issue like holy grail and
drops another like hot coal. The December 2012
rape case made headlines and created near hysteria
whereas the rampant raping of the Dalits in Indian
villages never figure at all. Undeniably, the
crusading role of the media during the December
2012 incident did bring about a drastic change in
the rape law of the land, but did it really change the
plight of the underprivileged? The issues of
patriarchy and the lack of governance, as the core
issues of such an incident, were never discussed.
Had the laws reduced the number of rapes? We
need to know, and as a crusader for the cause, is the
media discussing the issue at all? In fact it
conveniently moved on to the next big issue. The
media did the same with the Anna Hazare
movement and the Kejriwal wave – nurture it and
claim success initially and all of a sudden drop the
issue when it is either perceived as a threat or
rendered useless for them. The same approach is
visible when scams are covered by the media: the
particular scam and the media house announcing it
give a distinctive narrative of the political economy
not only of the issue at hand, but also of the media
house in question. As Pierre Bourdieu said, such
selective news stories give “free rein to the
unbridled construction of demagoguery (whether
spontaneous or intentional) or can stir up great
excitement by catering to the most primitive drives
and emotions” (On Television, 1996).
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
4/8
11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
imitators need to remember that the Murdoch
formula has not been able to prevent the demise of
newspapers, which have outlived their utility. The
newspapers that have managed to survive so far are
those who, instead of trying to keep up with the
channels, chose to concentrate on analysis and
interpretation, tasks which the print media can do
far more effectively than the electronic media. The
ultimate folly the newspapers can commit is to
compete with the television on its terms.
A TV news capture after the 2012 Delhi rape:
were the deep roots of the problem discussed?
A Time Magazine cover discussing
the press crisis in the Western media
At one end of the electronic spectrum are channels
which, under journalists who honed their skills in
the print media, are seeking to maintain
professional values amid the ceaseless flow of
Breaking News, which inevitably requires
continuous lowering of standards to sustain viewer
interest. At the other end are channels dominated by
narcissist anchors suffering from delusions of
grandeur and constantly haranguing their guests,
studio audiences and the viewers in the name of the
Nation or the People. While enterprising media
persons venture into sting operations, the
professionally weak fake them.
As the state’s monopoly over radio and television
collapsed in the face of technological advances and
economic liberalisation, the last quarter century
witnessed an unprecedented media explosion with
private channels leading the proliferation drive.
Journalism training facilities also grew but not to
the extent needed to meet the demand of the fastgrowing job market. To make matters worse, the
This leads us to the issue of the usage of language
in the media. How and why a question is posed, to
whom, in what context, and then represented where,
are always enigmas. Often, we see a channel vie for
attention by saying that only its journalists had
access to a particular breaking news. But if you surf
the other channels, you will find that everyone is
demanding the same. Then, you look at how the
particular breaking news is treated and you find that
almost every Prime Time News presenter is asking
the same question, albeit in a different language.
For example in the Devyani Khobragade episode,
the channels made a martyr of the officer and drove
the government to react quite naively. While there
were far more contentious policy issues between
India and the US, the channels conveniently ignored
that and never raised the issue of national pride.
Higher the pitch and more aggressive the nature of
presentation, more attractive the programme! But
this is not as benign as it seems to be. Another
obnoxious way of the Prime Time ‘stars’ is to put
words into others’ mouth. They put pressure on a
person to utter words which are then edited and
removed out of context and quoted rampantly. Such
utterances obviously serve the purpose of the media
house, but that is definitely damaging both for the
issue as well as the person concerned.
One often has a feeling that today’s journalists are
not educated enough to handle any complex issue.
The debate then comes down to whether journalism
education should be made mandatory. A person
goes through a long social and political
conditioning from childhood to become what she or
he is. A one or two year course cannot develop a
sensitive journalist. But this does not mean that
journalism education is useless. Our society must
urgently begin to discuss this in greater depth.
In this uproar of the media, online platforms seem
to offer a more democratic and analytical space. It
is not that these platforms are not susceptible to
various pressures. But, seeing the way this space is
expanding, and how more and more young Indians
are logging on to it, we may pin some hope onto
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
5/8
11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
quality of training leaves much to be desired.
Exposure to a wide range of subjects over a few
months may be sufficient to prepare one for a
journalistic career but does not really equip one for
it. Few institutions have adequate facilities for
practical training. The time has come to develop
full-fledged journalism schools on the lines of the
National Law School but the matter is yet to engage
the attention of the state as well as newspaper
owners and editors.
All media is habit-forming. Those used to
sensationalism cannot be weaned away from it
easily. So the recovery process must necessarily be
slow. The first step is for all concerned to realise
that the solution to the problem lies in the
strengthening of professionalism. Establishment of
quality training facilities where prospective
journalists can be provided good professional
grounding can be a starting point. Collaboration
between training institutions in India and those in
other countries, including African and Latin
American countries, to develop alternatives to the
doomed Western model can be explored. The media
needs to take note of not just the events but also the
processes that lead to events, not just personalities
but the broad contours of the society in which they
operate. Reforms must not lead to a new kind of
uniformity. The media must provide the public with
real choices.
those new spaces to give us genuine debates and
deliberations, to breathe in fresh air into the
mediascape. But it will take time, as the access to
these platforms is very skewed as of now.
The proliferation of media that India is witnessing
often gives us a false sense of having choices. But
do we have it in reality? Cross media ownership,
dominant business model and the homogenised
programming pattern leave, in fact, no space for
healthy competition or even choices. However,
even to sustain the hegemony that this corporate
media aspires for, they need to understand that
giving space for democratic and constructive as
well as informed discussion and debates is a must.
Else, media fatigue might seep in and the people
might stop taking the media seriously. This, in turn,
will be a threat to the edifice of a healthy
democracy.
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
6/8
11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
BRP Bhaskar is a journalist and social activist.
Starting his journalistic career more than six
decades ago with The Hindu, BRP Bhaskar
reported in and outside of India for various
publications of the country: Statesman, Patriot,
UNI, and Deccan Herald. He has covered the
Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir and
other destinations during heated eras. BRP Bhaskar
later turned to the visual media: he was one of the
major forces behind the creation of Asianet TV, the
first privately owned television channel in
Malayalam.
Shashwati Goswami is an Associate Professor at
IIMC, New Delhi. Her areas of interest include
Media Policy, Public Health Communication,
Environment and Conflict Communication, Radio
Broadcasting and Community Radio. She has
worked extensively in the areas of DevelopmentInduced Displacement and Urban Poverty. She is a
recipient of Panos South Asia fellowship for
conflict reporting and Rockefeller archive centre
grant-in-aid for archival research in family planning
communication. She is a native of Assam.
Go to Shashwati Goswami’s response
Disclaimers: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own. They do not represent their institutions’ view.
LILA Inter-actions will not be responsible for the views presented.
The images and the videos used are only intended to provide multiple perspectives on the fields under discussion.
Images & video courtesy: Hello-Magpie | The Hoot | TBIP | Media Bistro | Pakistan 33 | Financial Times | Metro and You | IBN Live
Share this debate…
… follow LILA…
… and join the discussion below!
0 Comments
LILA Interactions
Sort by Best
Login
Share ⤤ Favorite ★
Start the discussion…
Be the first to comment.
ALSO ON LILA INTERACTIONS
WHAT'S THIS?
Indian National Congress: In Safe Hands?
Government: Of, By, For the People?
2 comments • 7 months ago
7 comments • 6 months ago
Hari Puthenkavil — Interesting piece from Dhiraj Nayyar (Firstpost, 26 March
Veena S, Student — Mr. Modi’s step to invite the SAARC leaders to his
2014):"... the party’s failure to live up to the promise of 2009, when the voters
of India handed it a second consecutive term …
swearing in ceremony itself demonstrates that he is not ready to let petty party
politics or personal grudges come in the way of …
Season Round-Up: Refractions off the Spheres
Football: Beauty on the Defensive?
3 comments • 4 months ago
2 comments • 5 months ago
✉
Guillaume Bilkul Gandelinde — You can still find some room for dissent in the
Osondu Okoronkwo — Yucee Okoronkwo: One can not over emphasise the
media, like Le Monde Diplomatique or Mediapart or even some more obscure
websites; but I think we are chasing after …
beauty of football. It is the only game that has the ability to bring both friends
and enemies together. Even other …
Subscribe
d
Add Disqus to your site
Privacy
LILA Inter-actions
LILA Inter-actions is an online medium of translocal dia-logues. A radicalisation of the inter-disciplinary, the trans-local is necessary, first as it
affirms locality, the expertise of the writer, and second, because it marks the synchro-nous transcendence of the local, the interdependent necessities of discourses feeding each other in the continued effort of an opening to new audiences. Read more on the ethos of LILA Inter-actions,
discover the editorial team and contribute to our medium.
LILA Foundation
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
7/8
11/11/2014
Contemporary Media: Tuning into Mis/Trust Channels
LILA Inter-actions is a project of LILA Foundation. Discover our other events, programmes and media:
Our Other Activities
Domains of Inter-actions
Search for:
Search
2014 Aam Aadmi Party AAP Art Beauty BJP Body Citizen
Politician Civil War Conflict Corruption Culture Delhi Democracy Development Dreams
Ecstasies Education Elections Gay Gaza General Elections Geopolitics Governance Government History Independence India International Relations Left Lesbian LILA
Modi Performance Photography Poetry
Politics Power
Queer Racism Religion
Space Spirituality The
Citizen Politician Debate Series Violence
Theme by Towfiq I.
http://www.lilainteractions.in/2014-3-12-brp-bhaskar-shashwati-goswami-contemporary-media-tuning-mistrust-channels/
8/8