Media
play a quintessential role in the daily life of an ordinary human
being. In the hegemony created by smart phones, selfie sticks, social
networking sites comprising face book, twitter etc, media have given
priority for trivial incidents these days. In the hustle bustle of
the modern life, people find social media as their safe and quick
source to express their opinions, criticisms and comments regarding
the daily happenings around them. When new generation strives to
express their viewpoints at the earliest on whatever issues, they try
to impose their dominance over others and wish to become a hero. The
online webs and portals have relegated the status of public opinion
to gossips and scandals. My paper will begin by examining the role of
media, The Fourth Estate in moulding the “public opinion” and how
it varies from the “published opinion”. The online, social and
broadcast media have given way for conventional journalism and now it
is the era of “citizen journalism” and cut throat competition
among individuals who try to become the content makers of the day. I
would like to throw light upon the facts that constitute policy
making like the identification of problem, policy recommendation,
decision, implementation, evaluation and resolution.
Media
corruption undermines Indian democracy and it’s quite hard to say
whether there exists any difference between fourth estate and real
estate. What befalls at times is that media distort the news and we
find difficult to make the truth out of that. In order to
substantiate this view, I would like to quote the statement of
P.Sainath, the renowned columnist and Magsaysay award winner who once
opined “if patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, what the
reader wants is the last refuge of every intellectually bankrupt
editor on earth”. The arena of media is corrupted like anything and
their squalid approach is competent enough to portray wholesale lies
as news. In this context, I would like to hint on paid news that can
be called a double jeopardy for democracy. The cancer of corruption
has penetrated into every nook and cranny of the world and at least
media should take some initiatives to get rid of the danger as they
are capable of creating a resonance in the minds of multitudes.
Media
may be free politically but imprisoned by profit. It is the dire need
of the hour to get rid of the anaemic role of media so as to bring
forth quality news and content to the public free from all kinds of
biases. The paper would also give an idea on the recent trends in
media namely whistle blowing, trial by media, sting operation,
corporate dominance and political party dominance.
I like to conclude
my paper with an optimistic note that qualitative changes will
definitely happen in media in the nearby future and policy making
area in these days of media convergence thereby proving that media
will become a part and parcel of the wifi life of us and policy
making.
