Triple Stream

MASS MEDIA - REQUIEM FOR CULTURAL VALUES

The press enjoys the dignified appellation of ‘the Fourth Estate’. But what is actually happening in our country? There is an increasing tendency to imitate the tabloid press of the west behaving not as a watch dog but as a blood hound prying into the private lives of high-profile men and women and making shocking disclosures of scandals to pander to the vulgar taste of the readers. There is little restraint in indulging in obscenity and mud-raking. In pursuit of their misconceived notions of the spirit of independent journalism and freedom of expression they are exhibiting degeneration of taste, trivialization of news and unrestrained film-glamourisation. The boundary line between real culture and cheap entertainment has become blurred and it has become routine to designate as culture all activities in which ‘thinking’ has no role. It looks as though the country has run out of intellectuals, men and women of true heroic stature and simple living.

News media and especially the Television are sending wrong signals to the youth by projecting fashion models, film stars, brand ambassadors and political criminals as role models and culture leaders by giving them too much space and publishing their large size colour photos. Spicy bits of their unedifying private lives and related trivia are being given focus. During these two decades India has been hijacked from its time-honoured culture into a culture of consumerism otherwise known as Five-Star Hotel culture which consists in a carnival of spending. Food, fun and unabashed luxury figure prominently in the media. We find proliferation of vulgarity, crime, rape and mindless violence.

By the time a boy gets out of the school and the college, he has watched about 15000 hours of television, witnessed 1200 murders and observed 10,000 alcohol related scenes. Boys learn their attitudes, values and habits from television and the movies. They get the message that smoking is glamour, drinking is fun, drugs are the ‘in’ things and teachers are jokers.
Television serials and advertisements and cinema present women in scanty dress and undignified manner. Women have to appear in seductive poses not only for advertisements of soaps, tooth pastes and cosmetics but also for shaving razors which men use! The less we talk about break dances and love scenes where flesh is flaunted, the better. Thin partitions divide pornography and subtle erotica. Dialogues are made deliberately ambiguous. One news item says: “Inspired by a film, two minors rape a 7 year girl!” We can multiply such samples. Occasionally there may be such incidents in a corner of the country with motivation supplied by the media and may go unnoticed in the normal course. But extensive publicity is being given by presenting them on T.V. in millions of people’s homes or on a front page of a newspaper that is seen all over the world. Particularly terrorists and hostage-taking kidnappers may be tempted to commit worse crimes to get world-wide coverage. Sex seems to be an obsession with the media. A news item says: “Hints of sex scam in Aurobindo Ashram of Pondicherry. Some women inmates of the Ashram have alleged sexual harassment and other perverted acts”. We find unmentionable things reported now and then.

Our culture leaders today are creatures of the mass media market place and public relations hype. We wonder whether India is the same sacred soil from which once sprouted forth intellectuals and great men like Gautam Buddha, Vivekananda, Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi.

However, we should give credit where it is due. There are noble exceptions. Investigative Journalism and Judicial activism are the real antidotes to political corruption, social evils and economic crimes. The press is doing a good job in exposing bribery and corruption in high places. In fact Tehelka has done to a lesser extent what Watergate had done in America. The media deserves credit for exposing the scams, the superstitions of the people and unmasking fake ‘gurus’ and self-styled god men. Unfortunately the good work done in this direction is neutralized by the shortcomings already discussed. One drop of poison is enough to render the whole milk unwholesome.

What is the remedy other than the present policy of appointing censor boards which smacks of politicization and blatant favouritism. Important appointments are politicized. Of course, the censor board is an ineffective body without teeth. There is urgent need for a regulatory body to effectively check obscenity, sleeze and other evils which make the media a menace to society.

We understand that at a national round table conducted recently in Hyderabad, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, Press Council Chairman and influential media personalities decided against a ‘Lakshman Rekha’ for News Media. We hear that the Minister was in favour of ‘Collective and cool introspection’. The Chairman of the Press Council too preferred ‘Self Regulation’. It is common knowledge and widely held public opinion that the so-called Self Regulation will be as ineffective and impracticable as the self-regulated code of conduct for politicians. In the present context newspapers are not expected to be guardians of public morality and promotion of values as long as they are service tools in the hands of profiteering business magnates and Press barons.

It is amusing to expect them to practice ‘introspection’ and draw their own ‘Lakshman Rekha’. It is common knowledge that the most powerful eye cannot see itself any more than a working instrument can work upon itself. ‘There are none so blind as those that will not see’ -the old saying is true.