Role of the media

Media, in my opinion, is one of the strongest and the most influential industries in India and across the globe. There are no two-minds about the fact that it has brought in a lot of awareness in the minds and the mind sets of the people but there are very few who really look into the split side of the powers of the media.

There are just more than a few questions that come to my mind when I watch a news channel or read a newspaper.

Why do I prefer reading only the gossip columns of the newspapers?
With time, I realised that my interest in any form of news gradually decreased. And this was marked by the "Godhra kand". Amidst all the chaos, I was gearing up for my 10th board exams. My exams got postponed and I was so well geared that I got fed up of reading the same syllabus again and again. So I switched to watching some TV. News was pretty much the only things getting aired then - Local or national. I noticed that there was violence shown all the time. Even if nothing big had happened, the news channels would air the same footage again and again through the day to give an impression of high-scale violence. It started making me feel that it was more of staging somethings and feeding violence into a person's mind more than authentic journalism. [By authentic journalism, I mean Journalism that is targeted towards spreading awareness and not violence. It would mean that it is more than just a money making business. A stand that is carefully taken so that you dont convey a biased opinion to your audience]. News eventually started feeling very repulsive. It seemed like it was just a well crafted story rather than an authentic experience/information. Gradually, I started feeling that gossip columns were more real. They did what they were meant to do and did not pretend to be real or authentic. As superficial as they are, they are still just "gossip columns" that are merely a "believe it or not" thing. [That might have gone all over the place, but the subject I was addressing here had a very varied context.]

That brings me to my next question.

Why is our journalism promoting violence and feeding it so deep into people's minds?
May it be the 9-11 footages or footages from the recent catastrophe that struck Japan, I dont really remember seeing a lot of dead bodies. Those were violent images but not smothered with blood. That is what I would call an intelligent piece of information. There are kids who see/follow newspapers/news channels and from an artist's point of view, I firmly believe that you can depict the real picture without being literal.

I have seen a lot of Indian media people covering deadbodies, people smothered in blood, bombed bodies etc. Is that really essential? In order to say that there was an attack that happened, do we really need to cover the body of the person who was stabbed? What is it that media is trying to feed into the viewer's/reader's mind? Is it really the information that they want to convey or are they just trying to feed our minds with sheer violence and a resultant baggage of hatred?

Ah! That was a lot of introspection for now. See ya later :)