Essay On Power Of Media

The media is no longer relegated to a fourth position. Its pervasiveness enables it to command a power and influence which, in many ways, surpasses that of the other three estates In India, with collapsing standards in public life cutting across party lines, the citizen no longer depends upon the opposition as a watchdog of authority. Increasingly, he turns to the media to safeguard democracy and defend public interest, to expose corruption and check the abuse of authority. Modern mass communication technology enables the media to extend its reach and to permeate all walks of life- political, social and economic. When other estates fail the citizen, the media, through its sustained campaigns, evokes public indignation, and spurs the state into speedy redress. Indeed, no other estate wields the kind of power and influence on public opinion that the press does.

Transparency and accountability in public life were significantly enhanced by the privatisation and growth of the audio-visual media in the 1990s. Till the advent of satellite television in the 1990, the only source of information and opinion controlled by private enterprise were newspapers. Doordarshan, the only television channel for about three decades after its introduction in 1959, remained largely a government mouthpiece. It was satellite revolution of the early 1990s that brought a mind boggling choice of TV channels, both Indian and foreign, to millions of homes across the country and dramatically transformed the quantum, quality and content of news and entertainment. In a country where a significant part of a population continues to be unlettered, the impact of television has been phenomenal. The audio-visual medium has the advantage of offering live coverage that a...

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...zed regulation is necessary. Organised self-regulation may provide some solutions but may not be adequately effective given the vested interests within the industry. One solution could be the establishment of an autonomous supervisory regulator, free from governmental control as from private control. Another point of view is that the media should be left as it is; free to follow its own course. Every democracy gets the government it deserves, and every society, its media.

Even though, the concept of ‘media by trial’ is fairly new but it is becoming a growing concern in our country because of the new news channels coming up and the ease of accessibility to every piece of information, therefore, in today’s world as much as it is difficult to hide any information from the public, it is just as difficult to provide ‘fair and accurate’ information to the public.