“The world seems a whole lot bigger than on the map”…says one of the promos on Discovery’s Travel and living. I kind of agree to that. With all our perceptions of the world getting closer and distances fast dissolving with the evolving and increasing modes of transportation, conveyance and communication – and with the almost homogenization of all world cultures (would refrain from using the word Californication), the contexts and references, incidents and situations that are of relevance today are getting more local, niche and far from the macro-global issues that supposedly make news to us.

This brings me to the word that surrounds our very senses today and brings about that sense of deliberate connectivity …NEWS! There is an overarching need to reach out to the audience, to get him to listen to us first, be that first source, the most credible source, and the all encompassing source of news…everyone claims to have hit the pulse and understood the audience’s nerves in terms of what he wants to see and hear. Pluralism of media though on one hand has led to convergence of media, it sure has also led to fragmentation of content. And I have my doubts about which one of them understands the target audience as well or can put a finger to say assuredly that this is what my audience wants and this is what I give him.

In spite of a visible and obvious blanket of a youth culture, with people trying to find similarities in clothing, cuisine, music…with everyone wanting similar vacations and adventure trips, shopping for domestic items in foreign lands, with prices for studies abroad fast slashing to meet the demands of the ever growing student population and a near bombardment of exclusive high end brands in every nook and corner of the country…all these similarities are only the epidermis layer of all the world societies – scratch the surface and you will find that there is a marked difference in what is of relevance to us, what we hear, what we like to see, and what makes sense to us or affects us directly.

News as much as we may want to differ, is very personal in the way we perceive it, receive it and understand it. If I have some relative working in the far east, I may switch on to BBC for its news on Middle East Asia, if I hail from the Hindi speaking belt, my channel surfing would be limited to Aaj Tak and sometimes shift to a Sahara Samay, if I am the so called metropolitan, I may swap between CNN-iBN, Times Now and NDTV 24X7. To each his own. It is much more difficult to run fledgling news channels in India than to run soap operas since story telling has always been second nature to Indians and hence getting glued on to air waves that broadcast pan-caked women and ostentatious homes housing the most ridiculous of men still garner high TRPs.

There is a heightened hype and hoopla of the fast expanding spatial boundaries to keep the channels opening up and the virtual fight of the various ‘dishes’ that are keeping the clarity, variety and choice of the customer in tact. But I am still wondering if the entire range of choices is meeting the requirements of a clarified news source that gives me different perspectives and lets me be a better decision maker to the larger issues that affect us.

We have the entire palette of news channels both in English and Hindi and of course not to forget the regionals. Pluralism at its best! But even as pluralistic media gets more localized with the content to suit the audience requirements, I am still not sure if a pluralistic media is lending objectivity to national news that can be more nation oriented. It’s a different thing to run a news item on national news channels such as ‘Ash and Abhi visit temple to dilute the effect of …manglik?!’ and call it breaking news…but again…objective?!!!! It’s a pity that with increasing channels every hour, there seems to be a dire poverty and clammouring for real in-depth news and all the intelligent Media graduates run behind the so called pseudo cultural family of India to see who weds whom?

I am writing this not just to put across a point of view, but to invite comments and suggestions….please do agree to disagree if you so wish…but I am still fighting a mini dissension of sorts in my head…
• What is happening to responsibility of content?
• What is happening to responsibility to society as representatives of Media?
• Why is entertainment news erstwhile restricted to Screen and Cine Blitz spilling over important space?
• Has the Country solved all its issues of poverty, unemployment, criminal offence, terrorism and political chaos?
• Have all the people become literate? Have all the cases been solved and the court of law vacationing?
• Have all arisen above poverty lines and India the superpower we all dreamt of?

Would love to get a different perspective.Cheers.

Tech Tags: pr public+relations india

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