We live in a world where media surrounds us everywhere all the time, from the shows we watch on television and the music we listen to on the radio, to the books, magazines and newspapers we read. Without media, people in the society would be cut off from rest of the world. The flow of information is important for the expansion of communities and media helps in this matter.
Without a wide range of information, people’s opinions and views would be bounded and their impressions and assumptions of the world around them would not be exploited. Media is used to spread information and its significance is of much importance as it’s the main source of informing the people on political issues or current affairs. It is also one of the sources of entertainment.
Print media has always been a dominant medium throughout the decades. Media workers have to do research for their reports. Journalists have the duty to report unbiased, accurate information as it is gained from reliable sources. It’s their obligation to obtain all sides of a story and to give an account on the good and bad results. There must be a balance view in the final product.
Today television channels, newspapers, Internet channels are making rapid income by cashing in on the news in mistaken techniques. In the race to become the most popular and the richest, they have broken the ethics that media must follow while trying to build a progressive society. There is no respect for the principles of the people and land that they serve.
While the media is sometimes viewed as being greedy in their plight for the latest and hottest news, their purpose is essential in a democratic society so that the people can keep track of their government bodies. The media has the ability to hold governments responsible, forcing them to explain their actions and decisions, all of which affect the people they represent.
If media does what it was intended for, it will be a great force in building the nation but now it operates differently. There are sensational depictions of someone’s personal lives like the recent Pratuysha Banerjee suicide case or the Hrithik Roshan-Kangana Ranaut splat. These are given undue importance over the real problems of farmers’ suicides due to their goal of getting TRP.
Every issue is publicised for a few days on most channels around the same time like the recent Vijay Mallya case. Now we do not see any channel discussing the progress of Mallya’s case but we have new story-Augusta Helicopter scam. One can fairly conclude that no channel follows up the case to let the public know what is going on. They conceal this by using other heated issues.
In a democratic community, people should know all their options but media, which usually provides this, is not ethical. The public has to judge on their own by looking at different channels or newspapers for the same news, and then form their opinion. One of the most influential forces of media in any society is the ability to effect change on both social and governmental levels.
People can be either positively or negatively affected by media messages. In today’s world, media has become almost as necessary as food. Media is a mirror of society and plays an outstanding role in strengthening it. The media put the lives of its workers in danger during attacks or natural disasters to keep us up-to-date but of course by taking sometimes undue risk.
Too much intervention by media in everything is quite disturbing. Sometimes, just for the sake of higher revenue, insignificant news is given in detail with priority that the real news is hardly noticed. Like science it’s a tool to be used by our judgment to derive overall benefits. In spite of being biased, significance of media cannot be ignored and it shall be a part of us always.