Derailing the Masses
Media holds a very crucial social responsibility and opportunity in molding a nation. Offlate most of the national dailies and the news channels have been very disappointing. The front page is usually full of controversies with a lot of spice (or for TRP) than any real benefit to the nation. Few weeks ago a very deep thought about media "Derailing the Masses" manifested into a full length post on my google buzz account. Felt I should re-post it here for a larger and older audience. Tell me what you think ? If in any small way we can initiate a change in journalism and media content we should actively contribute. I really like the tata tea + jagoore initiative.
Original Post: Mar 12, 2010 on Buzz
It is so much easier to educate people with today's technology and reach of communication medium unlike what it was 20 yrs ago. Predominantly everyone has seen TV, most have one at home, use mobile phones, a significant chunk of the society use internet - the reach to the masses is incredible. Yet we as a nation are just going downhill with whatever dumb programs are aired on TV. (lets keep the daily newspapers out for the mass doesn't read)
As a country where our values and culture was a strong trait which got us places we are now a mass of 1 billion people with a broken value system, no valuable improvement on IQ levels, massively corrupt and no longer tolerant on issues, spurting violence at the smallest spark.
Was just discussing this issue with my roomie @Saras Revanna today. Why can't the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting do something about all the Crime Story, 100's of rarely educative soaps/reality shows, repetitive insignificant and even obnoxious news channels. DD channels, however are still fairly informative and balance information, entertainment and value education.
It is quite alarming if you closely observe any household today. The morning hours go into astrology, religious programs, horrible news coverage, followed by soaps, cookery classes, back-to-back movies, meaningless "breaking news" of a monkey falling into a pond and now being worshipped as hanuman, another doze of soaps spun around deceit & vehement arguments, reality shows, ending the night with crime story and rebirth!!! phew! What an unbelievable waste of media reaching out to millions of citizens, who are still illiterate and we complain. Not just that we spend crores on sarva shikshan abhiyan, sthree shakthi, jawahar rozgar yogana and what not.
It is such a simple solution to scrutinize the TV channels and plan a programme to influence the mass gradually, seamlessly and at large. I wonder if any of the TV channels or the ministry even feel responsible for this huge negative influence on the masses. No, don't blame it on people, the whole argument of we need to chose to watch. If they were as informed more than 80% of the channels would have shut down of low TRP's.
We need to owe some responsibility to educate, to influence the masses if we have a dream for India. But the worst has been done and at large scale, this change seems impossible at small scale. The hope is someone more knowledgeable sits on the Ministry and strongly starts a wave of change.
Original Post: Mar 12, 2010 on Buzz
It is so much easier to educate people with today's technology and reach of communication medium unlike what it was 20 yrs ago. Predominantly everyone has seen TV, most have one at home, use mobile phones, a significant chunk of the society use internet - the reach to the masses is incredible. Yet we as a nation are just going downhill with whatever dumb programs are aired on TV. (lets keep the daily newspapers out for the mass doesn't read)
As a country where our values and culture was a strong trait which got us places we are now a mass of 1 billion people with a broken value system, no valuable improvement on IQ levels, massively corrupt and no longer tolerant on issues, spurting violence at the smallest spark.
Was just discussing this issue with my roomie @Saras Revanna today. Why can't the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting do something about all the Crime Story, 100's of rarely educative soaps/reality shows, repetitive insignificant and even obnoxious news channels. DD channels, however are still fairly informative and balance information, entertainment and value education.
It is quite alarming if you closely observe any household today. The morning hours go into astrology, religious programs, horrible news coverage, followed by soaps, cookery classes, back-to-back movies, meaningless "breaking news" of a monkey falling into a pond and now being worshipped as hanuman, another doze of soaps spun around deceit & vehement arguments, reality shows, ending the night with crime story and rebirth!!! phew! What an unbelievable waste of media reaching out to millions of citizens, who are still illiterate and we complain. Not just that we spend crores on sarva shikshan abhiyan, sthree shakthi, jawahar rozgar yogana and what not.
It is such a simple solution to scrutinize the TV channels and plan a programme to influence the mass gradually, seamlessly and at large. I wonder if any of the TV channels or the ministry even feel responsible for this huge negative influence on the masses. No, don't blame it on people, the whole argument of we need to chose to watch. If they were as informed more than 80% of the channels would have shut down of low TRP's.
We need to owe some responsibility to educate, to influence the masses if we have a dream for India. But the worst has been done and at large scale, this change seems impossible at small scale. The hope is someone more knowledgeable sits on the Ministry and strongly starts a wave of change.