CHANGING MEDIA: AN IMPACT ON THE 21ST CENTURY
Media has seen a drastic change in the last years, initially,the newspaper was seen as the only source of information and it had a major role in the nationalist movement. The newspaper was seen as a source that could bound all country together as it had a massive impact on people. With the beginning of the empowering digital media, we can see a lot of change that globalization and technology have bought on the masses. Language has never been a barrier for even a diverse society like India; the newspaper was circulated in different languagesfrom the beginning. Earlier media could only reach the educated classes, but with the advancement in digital media, it has become easier to reach all communities and classes.For more than 50 years, newspapers and TV have dominated news coverage almost everywhere until the internet created the low-cost opportunity to go global. With the system of Multi-channel, multi-platform news that is distributed socially is a way of saying to the consumer “you are in control: you decide if our content is entertaining and relevant and we supply it when and where you want it”. However, this fusion of traditional and new media is a big challenge for many, most of all for the daily newspaper which facesthe need to make a real strategic leap for survival. “The Global Village” is a term to indicate the mass production and the mass consumption of media images and content across the world. The term denotes the coming together of the countries of the world in one gigantic web of media landscapes. To take an example, the popular US news channel, CNN, and the venerable British news channel, BBC, are available throughout the world. Similarly, in entertainment, we have the Star Group that is beamed throughout the world. In knowledge and information category, we have National Geographic and Discovery that are available all over the world. What this means is that the ready availability of the same content throughout the world is binding the people in all countries to a common theme of oneness and shared media consumption. In the 1990s with the liberalization of many countries in the world, the global broadcasters entered countries like India in a big way, the opening up of the Indian media landscape to foreign channels represented a revolution in the way media is produced and consumed in the country. Many experts have pointed to the liberalization of the Indian mindset because of the consumption of global media. Indeed, many Indians were exposed to the West for the first time and the consumption of western lifestyle imagery and consumer choices meant that the aspirational values of Indians went up. We can see a sense of cultural homogenization among the countries through shared media, it opens our mind towards the western society and their norms. Similarly, many African countries were exposed to satellite television around this period for the first time. This resulted in greater awareness among the African people about the situation in the west and relatively comfortable lifestyles that the Westerners enjoyed. Like in many countries, the explosion of media choices leads to a widening of the debate in politics, economics, and social sciences. This resulted in calls for greater freedom and a better standard of living, which was manifested in the way the people in these countries, started using the media to voice their concerns. The Media, in turn, were happy to transmit the aspirations of the people and it can be said that TV and Satellite TV, in particular, was the game changer for many countries that were throwing off the old habits and old attitudes and embracing the Western way of life It can be seen that most media houses entered into partnerships with leading corporates wherein they published stories that were friendly to the advertisers. The other parallel trend from this period to the present is that media houses became corporates themselves in the way they approached the business of news reporting. Each media house aligned themselves to a particular corporate among the leading companies and thus, competition between the media houses ensured that the different groupings among industry in all countries could find sympathetic reporting from each media house. Moreover, the revenues of the media houses started to grow by leaps and bounds and in this trend, media houses were no longer the independent entities that they were earlier. In India, media conglomerates like the Times Group have risen in prominence in the last few decades thanks to the corporatization of the media. In the UK and the US, NewsCorp and Time Warner have come to symbolize big business and corporate media in all its glory. The point here is that the media is no longer content with just reporting the news but instead, it has morphed into entities that set the agenda and entities that play a prominent role in shaping the public discourse. In addition, the media houses entered into strategic partnerships with the leading corporates so that they get friendly press coverage. While the ethics of these trends can be debated, it is clear that the media, the conception of what makes news has been altered, and the current media landscape is symbolic of the corporatization of the industry. In many countries, the media can be seen used by the government as an instrument of control and for propaganda purposes. For instance, In India media is seen as an important instrument for political matters, we can see how media is governed by a specific party and does anything to put light on the opposition and to create a bad image of the opposition party. Media can be seen encouraging communal riots at several occasions, hence media has an upperhand in what they show and make people believe so it should be neutral and should have a true story behind everything they showcase. Media can be seen as the advent of change,mediapersons in many countries work tirelessly and courageously to report and publish according to their conscience and not according to the dictates of the establishment. With the advent of the internet and social media, it has become easy for journalists with a conscientious bent of mind to pursue their passion and ideals. Because of the fluid nature of the medium, the internet is harder to control and manipulate though there are cases where the establishment resorts to control over websites and the publications. Considering the fact that mediapersons have to walk a tightrope between the establishment and their duty to the citizenry, the bottom line imperative ought to be fairness, truthfulness, and objectivity in their reporting. This can be done by ensuring that stories that are controversial are not killed or buried in the maze but instead, they are given the importance they deserve. Further, media houses ought to shun the temptations of power and perks and be neutral and unbiased in their reporting. This can be achieved if the mediapersons do not fall into the habit of receiving favors from the establishment and the corporates beyond a point.It is simply not possible to have objectivity all the time as sponsorship and advertising revenue is the backbone of the media.