Media Commercialization

Commercialization of Indian media The media industry across the globe has witnessed salient changes in the recent years. There has been a considerable change in the perception of media in the olden times, as revolutionary instruments and powerful policy-making players. Today, the media is perceived untold as businesses with a motto of remaining profitable. The outgrowth competition along with the trend of confinement of media ownership to a a couple of(prenominal)er major trans internal conglomerates has further intensified the commercial compress in the terrain.This has overly resulted in media pro vivificationration, wherein numerous emerging media products embark on provide to the take of a more fragmented market. Commodification of news has become a unspoilt issue today. The news has become a product, packaged and sell to the economic elite, designed to satisfy the needs of the advertiser first, and audience second. The raise competition adds on to this connotation wh ich stimulates the media genre to adopt strategies which may horizontal disfigure and deface the relationship amidst editorial content and advertising.As the media covered stadium becomes commercial, it relies more on advertising revenue for its survival, which, in turn increases pressure to develop media content that appeals to the advertisers. This, in fact, results in an elevated amount of conflicts with the medias office towards mankind in terms of supplying information, in public interest. In fact, the precise purpose of the existence of the media, i. e. , informing the public is overshadowed by such(prenominal) commercial concerns.The increasing pressure also leads the media houses to be choosy nigh their audiences with regard to the advertiser appeal, and hence the focus is shifted to wealthy, elite audience. In India, the media c atomic number 18ens between froth, marketing, reporting, opinion, and reacting. Seriousness is often dislodged by commercialism editor of l eading bailiwick daily turned gourmand and celebrity interviewer motion page reporting of celebrity weddings, gastric troubles fatter lifestyle supplements hour long adulatory shows on news conduct around an Indian superstar who frankly claims to take aim no ambitions other to pee-pee fun and entertain the smokestackes etc.Predictably, the prevalence of coverage of the attacks and its afterwardsmath is superficial too trending to human interest, pandering to mass ablaze outrage, instead of concentrate on systemic problems. Serious reporters are doing let the cat out of the bag shows of sorts, c all in all tolding on their guest panel former soap stars, actors, and socialites. Reports are rife with accusations of the administrations callousness, dropped balls, and self-righteous calls for more heads to roll. Journalism in the face of a real crisis is laced with passionate rhetoric, not real questions and solutions.The strength and enormousness of media in a commonwealt h is well recognized. Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian Constitution, which gives license of speech and expection includes within its ambit, freedom of press. The existence of a free, strong-minded and powerful media is the cornerstone of a democracy, especially of a exceedingly mix society like India. Media is not only a medium to express once feelings, opinions and views, unless it is also responsible and instrumental for building opinions and views on various topics of regional, home(a) and international agenda.The pivotal role of the media is its ability to summons the thinking process of millions. But in todays highly commercialized market, the press is losing its main focus. Journalism had deviated from the path of responsible journalism to more saleable journalism. There is more news about the prosperous and the happening rather than the poor and dying. The gap between mass media and mass reality is developing at an alarming pace. Nowadays media is primarily focusing o nly the elite section of society. How much(prenominal) does the unforgettable tour of the Bachchans dissemble us?And how much would a disaster like Bihar floods affect the battalion? Yet, the media is more interested in focusing on what should be printed on page 3. Ask yourself, does page 3 mean more than the realities of life? Though the role and importance of media is increasing in our lives today, its doleful that its accountability and professionalism is dwindling. With great power comes great responsibility. Television convey in a bid to increase their TRP ratings are resorting to sensationalized journalism with a view to earn a competitive edge over the others.Sting operations have at a time become the order of the day. We are a democracy of a billion plus people with the largest youth population in the world, large sections poor and uneducated, inadequate social services, and a country in transition. It is imperative that our influential intelligentsia focus unfailingly on meaningful issues since the opportunity cost is enormous. The giving medication is increasingly side pedigreed by private green light unprepared peasants are migrating to straining cities and the nouveau riche anxious to express their nascent individualisation is turning to incongruous consumption.Our academia is intently focused on the graduates pecuniary remuneration, and naturally, commercial interests dont provide any discipline. Entertainment czars consume our attention, shape public opinion, and increasingly control our daily life by forming a linkup with private industry, and entering the administration. We have mall coterminous to mall adjacent to mall, and almost no democratic recreational lay. Mostly the middle-class Indian comes in contact with one another to consume, an individualistic pursuit, thus develop no incarnate voice or opinion.Further, democracy in India has legion(predicate) pitfalls the educated vote counts as much (or as little) as the uneducat ed. Nepotistic, policy-making power is concentrated governmental will is weak, and further emasculated by our coalition government structure. Any one stick out start a new political party, garner a few electoral votes, sett together a patchwork government, and sporadically threaten to fell the government if their personal demands arent met. As a country we raiset afford to feed or educate our children. We use our poorest as cattle, carting heavy burden on their backs in crowded urban markets.Our farmers are committing mass suicide. Religion is a recurring flash point. There is so much going on in India that we cant afford to dilute our focus on the main(prenominal) issues with front page/prime time coverage of entertainment. Moreover, print media, especially national newspapers are newspapers of record, and the current news standards will leave many important events that shape our country undocumented for our future generations. The state runs on taxes, and is apt(p) to its c itizenry, however the individual is unable to demand accountability.The Indian citizen has no serious platform to voice her concerns, of harnessing institutional power to fight systemic battles. Consequently, we now have a country where citizen activism is either all or nothing. Its an all out battle, which the common person struggling just to survive, exhausted amid the delays, chaos, continuing infrastructure shortfall/failure and pollution cannot wage. Activism cannot and should not be at the exclusionary cost of personal life, and livelihood. Media must provide serious relevant coverage, immaculate information, and emocratic access to voice public concerns. This is medias non-negotiable obligation to society, by virtue of discriminative access, mass reach and the ability to shape public opinion. Yes, the Mumbai attacks are a wake up call to our government, but also to our media, one of the real and last bastions of democracy. India urgently needs renewed civic engagement, a nd it is the medias responsibility to wee-wee that platform, not as a temporary reaction to some outrage, but as a permanent social structure. India is witnessing a rapid commercialisationanddiversification of media(news).One only needs to glance at the leading national dailies and 24/7channelsto understand the extent of its impact. Reality is nothing more than a series of moments. And in these very moments one can findelements of all that is strange, frightening, colourful, funny, ludicrous and fantastic. Who needs fiction when fact fissures it all But when it comes to the Indian media, there is sometimes simply too much being offered. Johann Wolfgang VanGoethehad felt that very few people have the imagination for reality.One wonders what the great thinker would have felt compelled to say after an evening spent surfing contemporaryIndian newschannels. Would he perhaps have concluded that too much imagination can mist reality, shrouding it in unnecessary layers of melodrama and ex aggeration? Our so-called newschannelsfall into this erroneous routine with alarming regularity. The concept of breaking news in the age of 24/7 broadcasting has led to a architectonic shift in the paradigm- the spotlight has shifted from what matters to what sells. So the media is constantly on the reel for fresh fodder-anything that exhibits potential to arrest eyeballs will do.Minor matters such as the relevance of the story, sensitivity towards the subject or the viewers, news prioritization, etc. get relegated to corridors of obscurity. present are some moments from the recent past which were pounced upon with glee by the story-starved infotainment networks moments which make the day for India TV and its ever-growing brethren in short, moments which were made for the media Terrorism, terrible as it may sound, is made for television. The dawning sense of horror, the magnitude of destruction, the agony of human exhalation is captured with maximum precision and lasting imagery through the electronic media.The terrorist needs the oxygen of publicity to survive and TV provides with him that. 26/11 haunts our collective imagination both because of the scale of terror and TVs explosive coverage of the attacks. The commercialisation of the Indian media takes many forms. It has been known for some time that a few of Indias leading media conglomerates including Bennett, Coleman & Co. , the publisher of The Times of India and The Economic Times offer what that guild calls innovative and integrated marketing strategies that blur the traditional line between advertising and article content.Bennett, Colemans Medianet division, for example, lets advertisers place articles on sealed pages in the paper without clearly marking them as advertising. One of the companys more aggressive offerings is a product known as a offstage Treaty, which offers companies a certain amount of advertising space in exchange for equity stakes in those companies. According to the cla ndestine Treaties Web site, Bennett, Coleman now holds such equity stakes in more than 100 companies. Officially, the companies are only given advertising space.But at to the lowest degree one businessman confirmed to me that it was made clear that he could also expect favourable news coverage. At the very least, it seems evident that Private Treaties set up a very serious conflict of interest, a point highlighted last year when the Indian stock market regulator, the Securities and convert Board of India, wrote a letter to the chairman of the Press Council expressing concern about the business practice. Private Treaties are an example of the commoditisation of business news. But much of the recent attention in India has focused on paid political content.Over the past year or so, there have been a growing number of reports of politicians paying media houses for favourable coverage or to skirt restrictions on campaign financing. Embracing commercialization seems to pose a threat to the whole tone of content communicated by the media, which, in turn, is questioning the fundamental objective of its very existence. Commercialization has a positive impact on the financial surgical procedure of media in the market, but it indeed shows the way to certain unpleasant upshots, in general on the quality of the content of dissemination.