By Bodhi Shri
Anna Hazare’s historic fast accompanied with mass protest at Ramlila Maidan last year demanding Jan Lokpal as a sure recipe to stem all-pervading corruption in the country and a recent flash protest at India Gate after the Delhi gang-rape case in a moving bus, are two apt Indian examples to illustrate how social media can be used to build and sustain a five star movement. Only condition is that it should be complemented by main stream media especially the 24x7 TV making the protesting mob spectacle sensational.
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| Founder of Aam Admi Party Arvind Kejriwal (4th from the left) regaled students of journalism by his side-splitters against corrupt politicians of India. He urged youth to not hate politics, but join it to change India. |
The combined blistering heat of social media and TV was earlier felt by despots of the Middle East during the spring revolution it had created. The outcome was a few despots got dethroned. Arvind Kejriwal, a trusted former associate of Anna Hazare, is now experimenting with building a political outfit ‘Aam Admi Party’ to take on the corrupt Indian political system with the help of social media. He is a craze among students these days.
It was a day of delight and positive
stimulus for the students pursuing their 3-year BJMC course at the BLS Institute
of Technology Management (Bahadurgarh, Haryana, when they got Kejriwal as the chief
guest for their panel discussion on ‘Media as a Catalyst of Society’ on 21
February. They found him a great regaler
who kept them bursting into laughter by his side-splitters against corrupt
politicians. At the outset he established his brand-equity by declaring he was an
aam adami (common man) like any one of them or anyone in India.
What oppressed the countrymen most,
he asked and gave the consensual answer--the corrupt politics, which is controlled
by none other, but ‘your’ elected representatives. He gave statistics of how many of them were facing
heinous criminal charges in the courts of law. The highest law making body the
Parliament, whose lower house Lok Sabha has 14 members facing charges of murder
and 13 other charges of kidnapping. Seeing all this the youth today says—I hate
politics. ‘No, this is wrong decision, you should not think like this. You need
to participate in politics to change its character.’
Media should declare political and business interests
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| Sushil Aggarwal, chairman of BLS Education Society (Right) |
He qualified his praise for media as
a roller coaster supporter of people’s cause, but most other times it remained
blindfolded to the stark reality. He complimented media for taking Anna’s stir
to every home, also the issue of women safety in Delhi. By doing so it proved
it was with the people. It proved that it can act as catalyst. Even during the
emergency in mid seventies it wasn’t neutral, and sided with people. But in
general we find today a competition of sensationalism going on among media.
Media covered an event only till it had some sensational value. He raised a
pertinent question why certain media present certain things in a certain manner.
‘To maintain credibility, the biggest asset of any media, it should declare its
business and political interests like how much share the FDI or the Big
Business hold in its equity? People should know this. Why there should not be
transparency in that.’
Kejriwal limited his comments to the
mainstream media and ignored fast emerging social media that poses a new
challenge to the established one. Other panelists, viz. Vinod Varshney Editor
of Lokayat, Dhiranjan Malvey OSD in Prasar Bharti, Vinod Arora, Chief
Operational Officer of the ministry of information and broadcasting and Ratan
Singh of Dainik Bhaskar, together built up a comprehensive picture of the
media, including social media.
Dhiranjan explained the economic
compulsions of media how without Rs 500 crore one cannot start and run a TV
channel successfully with national footprints. He posed a question how anybody
can expect media to act as a catalyst when the first worry of the owners remained
to see their investment is not sunk. ‘This is a reality that private channels
care more for their bottom-line.’ However, the internet media can afford to be
free if it wants, as at least there are no such business compulsions involved
in running it. Luckily, social media has also started attracting advertisements
in good volumes, sometimes more than the conventional media, he informed.
FDI in media changed its character
Vinod Varshney emphasised that the
character of Indian media got changed drastically since the FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) was allowed in
media. He gave inkling of the times when the debate was raging whether to allow
FDI or not in media. Many argued against allowing this as it would ruin the
culture and value system of the country and media would become an agent to
promote the western values, political and business interests. But a section,
desperate as it was, not being able to compete with the monopoly national media,
pressed for it. And now see the result--media is getting more and more attuned
to western concerns, interests and values.
It is promoting a consumerist
culture which serves the business interests of the companies who produce
related goods and services. To hook the rest of India fake sensationalism is
offered. The media thus lately is becoming more and more damaging to the desirable
values of liberalism, social welfare and concerns of masses.
Big corporate advertisers have over-controlled
the media and as such the media does not remain a catalyst for the positive
development of the society. This apart, the poor working conditions, including
job security, is also taking its toll on the Indian media. The control of the
editor on the editorial policy and content is now thing of the past. It is the
business boss who decides what is good for the company as every quarter it looks
forward to declaring growth in profits if it is a stock exchange listed
company.
Consumerist culture is being propagated
to the loss of inclusive human culture which alone can cater to the general
development and welfare of the society. He slammed journalist fraternity for not
caring to go deeper into issues and develop sound understanding of them. Alibi that
people want sensational stuff so only that should be offered, has become the
rule. He urged the students to develop rational thinking and scientific outlook
so that they can bust myths and not swayed by propaganda of various interest
groups.
He termed social media more dynamic
and more democratic, however many say that large part of it is propagandist.
This media is being used mainly by various interest groups.
Vinod Arora gave a detailed history
of how media developed and grew. Ratan Singh of Dainik Bhaskar told from his
personal experience how difficult it was to get revealing stories published if
they go against the business interests of the owners. Students of journalism
may remain idealist till they are in the class room, but the missionary zeal gets
evaporated soon once they join a media organisation as they have to invest all
their energy to protect their jobs.