How landscape of social
media and media is emerging up in India in the context of upcoming Lok Sabha
elections? How first time voters are going to behave in this election? How polarized
is the social media or for that matter electronic and print media in India in
contemporary times? What are the historical contexts in which Indian media
evolved and how we should understand the political-social-economic reality and diversity
in India in terms of how they are expressing themselves in online-offline media
and also how they are consuming the political content through different
sources? How political equations are changing and how they are affecting the
popular discourse in mainstream media and also how discussions on media
platforms are shaping our understanding of what politics we are witnessing?
These were all questions debated in an interactive session with Dr. Maya
Ranganathan (http://tinyurl.com/kdablt4) here in MICA, Ahmedabad.
The core question which
was discussed was: is media ‘neutral’? Was it ever so? What are the
manifestations of its supposedly prejudiced / biased orientations? Media
historically is a political tool. Politics always uses agency of media for
propagation of ideology, ways to forge a consensus and also elements of
discourse which are further used for political appropriation, silencing dissent
and also to build own propaganda narratives through ever emerging material reality
in evolving dynamism of media.
Is media independent?
Can it ever be? No. Is it part of larger political machinery in democracy? Yes.
Sometimes it is a part of Little Tradition; sometimes it is part of Great
Tradition. In little tradition, there are always some biased motives behind the
dissemination of information or opinions. Regional/vernacular media in India
and across are always driven by some agendas from time to time because of some
historical compulsions. These compulsions can be of freedom struggle in
historical conditions, propagate religious/community spirit, spreading regional
affiliation or work vociferously for social reform. But these realities are
changing and changing fast before we can gauge the impact of all these
transformations arrived at because of technological innovation, economic globalization
and penetration of social media in youths. The Great Tradition, largely inspired
from English press inside/outside India, largely claims to be guardian of
Objectivity, Neutrality and Non-biasedness. Barring very few rare exceptions
worldwide, this is something even Black Swan claim (exceptions like The
Guardian, BBC, The Hindu, Der Spiegel, The New York Times, and Washington Post).
Each case of media is unique in a way to interpret the underlying currents or
layers of power connections which influence the operation of media on a day to day
basis.
Diversity of opinions
in public sphere is greatly influenced by ability of representation it gets in
social media and electronic-print media. Claiming that Indian political
landscape is only dominated by BJP, Congress and AAP is as much as rational ignorance
as expressing the rosy imagination of powerful third front which can take shape
in any prospective post-poll scenario.
Normalization of political-social diversity is dangerous for the health of
democracy and the kind of analysis which is emerging largely underestimates this
very diversity. This goes along with bandwagon of supposedly happening polarization
in Indian public sphere represented by various media platforms is antithetic to
the process of arguments, disagreements and
dialectics which are necessary to
co-exist along with the possibility of free spaces for discussions to be
happened in accessible public sphere, in
this case various types of media platforms.
So, what lies ahead as
far as impact of media on individual preferences in voting, expressing, behaving,
and participating in political activity? Is sharing something on social media synonymous
to supporting to ideology or subscribing to any political vision or being
sympathetic to any kind of political opinion. In this context, certain
political forces are being successful in high-jacking the discourses in social
media/new media sphere. In the competition between social media and
electronic-print media, where each one is chasing other in the quest of adopting
content, or finding ways to create content, jumping in the content-churning;
they are influencing each other. This influence is not linear, not innocent and
not at all oblivious from external political interventions which are deeply
aligned with changing economic-neoliberal policy-structures within India and
outside India. The people, especially youth and teenager have greater role to
play considering their number of subscribers but there is a doubt about their
political sensitivity and their commitment to contemporary public discourse.
The
people who are traditionally proactive ‘political citizens’ are normally not
taking part vigorously in media discourses and also in latest avatar of social
media. Of course, they are catching up; but claim of complete representation
for that is far from credible. The people who are hooked to social media, of
course, have their own genuine opinions but there are many views about how they
are being expressed. Some say, they are becoming more and more prejudiced and
thus stereotypical paving the way for further polarization (religious,
parochial, racial and rationalistic). Another stand point says that, it is too
ambitious to claim that there are only few blanket categories which represent
this huge discourse. Marking the boundary lines of these categories is biggest
challenge in contemporary times. Also, while analyzing these discourses on
online/offline media, there needs to be a greater nuanced understanding and
analysis about the kind of political citizens and engagements of users in social
media are emerging.
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