The Role Of Media In Our Society
“By its very nature the media cannot be like an ordinary business, the role of media should be playing”
Justice Markandey Katju,
Every time I think about the term media, an image of watchdog comes across my mind. A watchdog has to protect his owner, give him security and react to possible outside interference with the rights of his owner. Therefore, the watchdog has to know his loyalties.
In today’s world, media has made a very special place for itself in our lives. If I say that today, media has become as important as food and clothing, then I don t think so that I am over exaggerating anything. There is no denial that media is playing a very significant role in making the world smaller. Through various mediums of media whether it is radio, television, newspaper or internet, we are able to connect with large number of people around us. Especially internet has truly become the need of every individual both for our work and to connect with our friends and well wishers. Facebook, Orkut and Twitter have occupied such special place in our lives that if we are not a part of it, then there is something really important that we are missing.
Media acts as conduit between society and the world, Government and the lawmakers. For a long time, media has been one of the methods of controlling people and leisure. The media is expected to inform mass audience, educate them, entertain the people and mobilise them towards the desired goal. The flow of information is important for the development of communities and the media facilitates this. Without a wide array of information, people’s opinions and views would be limited, and their impressions and the conclusions of the world around them stunted.
The Press in India is regarded as fourth pillar of democracy and it is an institution made for the welfare of the country and its people. The media in India is one of the freest in the world in terms of legal constraints. The freedom of Expression guaranteed under Fundamental Rights in our country remains an important facilitator for widespread engagement within democratic atmosphere. The first prime minister of independent India, Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru remarked, “I would rather have a completely free press, with all dangers involved in the wrong use of that freedom, than a suppressed or regulated press.” But this liberty should not be absolute and unlimited as it has tendency to become a licence which would lead to disorder and anarchy.
Power of the media can transform the whole society, especially in the developing countries it can be used to educate the people about the basic human rights. The dilemma of the developing countries is that people are not fully aware of their basic rights and if they know, they don't know about what to do and where to go. They don't know their collective strength. The media do not merely have an instrumental function in society; they also shape norms, beliefs and fields of interest in matters such as identity-building, ‘regionalization’, the formation of the multicultural society. Media men have access to people and they have an audience. The media brings awareness to the people, and I believe that awareness triggers thinking. Once the people are more aware, it will automatically make them think of good and better ways to create a good and better functional democracy.
It supplies good content to the people via a good communication infrastructure. In other words, there are two requirements: creating content so that people can understand it, and crating the infrastructure so that people can access the content. It is about bringing information to the people, bringing people to the information, getting them to think, and getting them to realize their responsibilities towards the nation. This change cannot occur overnight, but it can be initiated overnight for sure. The initiation is through your own hearts and minds, to understand what is missing, and take a determined step towards the belief of a better land, and to learn to dream and media has the power to turn a dream into reality.
The impact of media is really noteworthy. Excessive coverage or hype and exaggeration of sensitive news has led to communal riots at times. The illiterates are more prone to provocations than the literates. Constant repetition of the news, especially sensational news, breeds apathy and insensitivity. For instance, in Dhananjoy Chatterjee’s case, the overloaded hype led to death of quite a few children who imitated the hanging procedure, which was repeatedly shown on most of the T.V. news channels. There is plethora of such negative impacts. Recently, Justice Markandey Katju, Chairman of press council of India, said that much of the media is of very poor intellectual level. Many cases have emerged which shows that media has been baised. They are projecting what they want instead of projecting the reality.
Commercialisation has created a stiff competition in media. In order to outdo each other, print media has often gone one step further in publishing articles, cover stories etc on sex. Media has now reincarnated itself into a ‘janta adalat’ or public court and has started interfering into court proceedings. It completely overlooks the vital gap between an accused and a convict, keeping at stake the golden principles of ‘presumption of innocence until proven guilty’ and ‘guilt beyond reasonable doubt’. Now, what we observe is media trial where media itself does a separate investigation, builds a public opinion against the accused even before the court or the person who will eventually preside over the trial takes cognisance of the case. In this way, the accused is presumed as criminal, leaving all his rights and liberty unredressed. Unfortunately, the rules designed to regulate journalistic conduct are inadequate to prevent the encroachment of civil rights.
The print and the electronic media have gone into such fierce and ruthless competition that a multitude of cameras are flashed at suspects and the police are not even allowed to take the suspects from their transport vehicles to courts and vice versa. The press council of India issues guidelines from time to time to check such aggressive journalism and in some cases it does take action. Now, Justice M. Katju has opined for regulation of media. He said in democracy everyone is responsible to people, so should be the media. But simultaneously it is also true that this fourth pillar of society works best when free. While the freedom of the press must remain to help the people discharge their participatory role in governance, the media should use its vast strengths to protect and not harm someone. Media has got immense role in moulding minds of the next generation. It has got its own good aspects like providing more knowledge, information and opportunities, but its bad aspects overdo these.
They have to play crucial rule in educating the people and to provide them clear picture of what’s going on in the world because ignorance is a major problem. They should not over proportionate. Factual reporting is the essence of journalism and if the press starts reporting facts there would be a lot of betterment in the society.
