Indian Media On Fire

In India we have extremely large
scale to choose what to see on the television
or what to read. We have more
that 500 satellite channels and 70,000
newspapers in different languages.
India–biggest newspaper market in
world, where 100 million copies sold
each day. From last 20 years we moved
from state owned broadcaster Durdarshan to 500
different channels, of which more than 80 are
news channels.
But this growth may come at the cost of perfection,
ethics of journalism and honour
The media has taken some flanks in recent
months for being shallow, inaccurate and sometimes
damagingly obstructive. Markandeya Katju
(former Supreme Court judge), fired the first
broadside, exhorting journalists to educate themselves
more. It provoked a sharp reaction from
Media.
Dr. Amartya Sen wrote in his recent articles that
there are mainly two barriers in the main stream
media.
One – professional laxity, which leads to inaccuracies
and mistakes.
Two – class bias, in the choice of what news to
cover and what to ignore. He offers unexceptional
solution to ensure accuracy, newspapers should
publish corrections and journalists should be
given more training. Reporter should recheck his
data before publishing and broadcasting. There
should be some gaps in story or fake names and
numbering. It helps you to develop the accuracy.
There are serious concerns about the trivialisation
of content and increasing concentration
of media ownership in large corporate
groups. There is the nonstop breaking
news culture.
Most seriously, there is curse of what is
called paid news. This involves influential
people. Many politicians, paying
newspapers and news channels for positive
coverage.
How do we stop this?
Journalists like Mr. Guha, who was one of the
investigation team’s members for investigation
against paid news. He argues for increased transparency,
self regulation and competition regulation.
Why are India’s media under fire?

Twisted Indian Media

The first article is about the “twisted Indian
media”. Written by Sourav Roy. In this article
he speaks about the Medias approach towards
Indian society. Indian problems are unique. We
are an over-populated nation with fractured identities
and massive disparities. The national debates
we have been having since Independence
have changed, and the arguments around them
have multiplied. Multiplicity of debates may not
be seen as progress. The fact is that we are slowly
turning into a bandwagon whose one wheel is
being galvanized and polished, while the other
has been allowed to rust into grains.
Unfortunately, we have evolved into a society
that believes that problems can be solved just
through arguments. Arguments do not necessarily
mean an evolution in thinking, especially,
when these arguments are driven by the media.
In India there are people who can afford to eat
daily in McDonald’s, they do shopping in different
malls every day. On the other side nearly million
of farmers committed suicide in depression
since last 20 years.
Media highlighted IPL series and T20 world cup
games where people who live in Chawls facing 15-
20 hours of load shedding in the same city
Further he stated that media
simply stopped covering unprofitable
leads. Yes, the media has
become the new Indian god, deciding
the fate and interpreting
the world for all. This twisted
approach to journalism insults
the intelligence of the masses.
The data manipulation in news
papers reached at alarming levels. In India scams
are systematically hidden.
There are business correspondents who cover the
labour leads; there is no more space in news papers
for agriculture thing. The 70% of the population
is neglected just like that.
Newspapers have heavy political bias in India. In
a recent survey by the CRI, among the 25 most
important English newspapers circulated in
India, 16 favours the UPA, 3 favours the NDA and
1 is leftist. Only 5 newspapers in India are unbiased.
None of these five are among the largest circulating
newspapers of India.
Propaganda has taken the place of news
across the media. In India, you’ll hardly find any
news of the seven North-East States, nor will you
find accurate news from Jammu & Kashmir. Very
little news on scientific achievements remains
covered. We read excessive news of cricket which
extends far beyond the sports section. Other
sports are simply not encouraged. When was the
last time we had a cover story on hockey or chess?
We are served with meaningless film gossip and
useless news about celebrities, which shows how
much the PR agencies of these stars are paying
the media. Newspapers today have turned into
fashion magazines and have taken us far away
from real issues.
I want to ask a question here, we seriously don’t
care about our society? Where are we heading?
We become nostalgic?
Knowledge is strength. And the
media is a way to get knowledge.
But is this really possible with
biased media?
So we have to work hard here.
Start asking questions. Start
spreading knowledge you have.
This is how we can start for the
change..... !

My words nothing... their drift everything

My words nothing. Their drift everything. The lines from Walt Whitmans poetry.

These lines are related with writing to new media. 

Here he wants to say that the there is no importance for words but their power. Everyone took the drift of that word by their own way. They mold it as per their concern. No one go deep into to find out the exact relation.

Here we can take example of Indian political leader Rahul Gandhi, who was in Punjab for political meeting. In one open meeting he said that the human rights ratio tells that 10 out of 7 young people in Punjab are addicted to some kind of drug. Here media only highlighted that Rahul Gandhi says that Punjabi youth is 70% drug addict.

In Maharashtra, Raj Thakrey is always been the target of media.

Religion

God, Allah, Jesus, these are different names of some spiritual power. The power every human being wants to be with it. From thousands of years we pray to this spiritual power

Padris,poojaris, maulavis worked as middle person between god and human being. This thing is creating problem in our society.

One man from America started the study of these middle persons. These middle persons frankly ask for money for after death peaceful life. Some of them declared themselves as the next generation of Jesus Christ. They wear suits worth 2000 dollars where Jesus spent his entire life to serve poor people. 

In India, the situation is worst. Society blindly following sadhus and poojaries and babas.

Temples are not more holly places. They have become business centers. Where you have to pay for went into mandir, you have to buy pooja equipments, then Prasad and all. You pay donation to mandir also. You bribe god to fulfill your own wishes.

We forget to use our brain. And this is leading towards something terrible.

Pictures speaks the most universally understood language

Of all our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speaks the most universally understood language. Why pictures are easy to understand?

Why we can understand single image than the whole long speech?

Why it is universally accepted language?

In communication picture plays very important role. Visuals always attract attention. There is no need of any language to understand a photograph. This image was taken by the photojournalist at the time

Of Americas nuclear attack on Japan (Hiroshima and nagasaki), during second world war. This picture tells us the story of what people went through in those days. There were no homes; they were unable to find their own parents, no clothes to wear, and military everywhere. This picture tells much more than whatever I wrote above.

Charlie Chaplin’s movies are one of the finest examples of understanding the incidence or situation without saying a single word. His movies were loved in every corner of this world. He gave very serious messages too from his movies.

 

This image talks about the condition of police in our country. After so many terrorist attacks, bomb blast and growing crime rate, people started asking the question… “Are you sleeping?”

This photo is taken at london, during paralympic games 2012. The fall of the no leg runner. The energy that player using to run its tremendous. They come out of the thing where evryone counts them 2^nd because they are physically handicapped.

Pictures always open the new direction of that event. Evryone can judge that thing by their own way. Pictures made us think. They help to form our opinion. And they also work as reality or proof of an perticular incidence, event, etc.

So here Walt Disney’s quote, of all our inventions for mass communication, pictures still speaks the most universally understood language.

Lost in translation.

Lost in translation.

“Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another, unless the form is an essential element of the message“

 Eugene Nadi says this, who wrote a book named, “The Theory and Practice of Translation“.

It is very important that translation must be done very carefully, or we can miss the core content from it. For example, ”A cowboy went to the hairdresser’s. When he got out again, his pony was gone.“ Do you think this joke is funny? It is translated word by word from German into English. In German this sentence is a joke. The part which makes this sentence funny, however, cannot be translated into English because the German word for pony and fringe is the same – ”Pony“. This shows that the joke is lost in translation.

 When we translate its not just words that we translate, it’s meaning.

Now we will talk about loss in the translation of news. Mainly news is depending upon the proximity. There is huge effect of local atmosphere we can see n the news. There are different meanings of same words, there are some words which can be only understood after knowing that language. For example there was news in Marathi newspaper “pudhari” after transfer of Arup Patnaik. “naikanch pat kadhla”, here phrase “pat kadhla” means to throw someone in shame, this phrase basically used in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.

In language there is bond between the words, sentence shapes,  and the inter-sentence forces, meaning between the words.

When we specially talk about India, we have to be more careful.  Different cultures, different languages, perfect translation is not possible.

But we can try to understand the core content and translate the meaning not the words.

 

narrative and story

There is difference between the stories given to the viewer through the narrative and the story communicated to the audience by media language.

Media always simplifies the overall incidence or event that audience can easily understand. We can take example over here, camerawork can often provide us with clues to the story that narrative won’t reveal until later.

When any narrative tells the story it might be full of unwanted details and explanations. Because of this the audience can lose the interest in core idea of that particular narration. 

 Media languages are very easy to understand. Visuals create better idea of that event. There are some things that narrator unable to tell us. Such thing’s clues we can get from the visuals. Here David Bordwell states that the narrative only gives the story to audience, but media communicate with the audience.

 When communication comes there is a though of listeners too. Media languages made things easy to understand. For example, India America nuclear deals details by the governments speaker, include only few points and they are not easy to understand. And media explains same thing along with the views of Indian nuclear scientists, general people.

So yes there is always the difference between the stories given to the viewer through the narrative and the story communicated to the audience by the media language.