MEDIA AS THE FOURTH PILLAR OF DEMOCRACY – FREEDOM OF PRESS

 

INTRODUCTION

“Demos” means “people” and “Kratos” means “rule”. Butwhat if rules are governed by the opinion of a single person/party? The simplest answer to this question is, it will start a dictatorship/communism.

For preventingthis to happen, the basic principle of democracy came to the form which says “rules and government are by the people, of the people, for the people”. Since the concept revolves around the people. The voice of people matters a lot, and to acknowledge their voices the concept of media is being followed.

Media is one of the pillars of democracy among 4(The other 3 pillars are the legislature, executive, and judiciary.) on which the concept of democracy is established. Media shapes the thoughts of the public(personally and politically) in many ways. Article 19(1)(a) of the Indian constitution provides Freedom of speech and expression which also contains freedom of the press. There is no specific provision ensuring freedom of the press but it is regarded as “species of which freedom of speech is a genus”, SC said in Sakal Papers v. Union of India.

POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS IMPACT

Media has a large impact on the general public from marketing a product to marketing a political agenda. Media has always played an important role in shaping the development of the country and in democracy media plays the role of watchdog of the ruling party as, it reports all the activities of politicians and their politics since, media has the responsibility of finding and exposing the loopholes in any kind of democratic setup. Yet, media is accused to show the version of reality what they are paid to show.

It is the responsibility of the journalists to show an unbiased report on their findings. In a country like India where the literacy rate is 75% whereas the world average is 84%. We don’t expect that 25% to be aware of all the happenings of the world or nation. Here comes a big role of media to make them aware of the social, economic, and political aspects of the country they’re living in.

Political and religious aspects and agenda of Indian media are interconnected. Political parties use religious matter which can be deflecting to their morality but engages the general public into arguments of religion. The ruling throne has always taken the advantage of the conflicting ideologies of different religions and different groups of people. Though the Hindu and upper-caste debates dominate the media houses, they only constitute 8% of the population but approximately 71% of media covers them. The ‘pseudo-secularism’ is followed by the leftist media houses. The Muslims are the most powerful group in India but still a minority in a population of 18 Crore (2011 census) in numerical aspects. 

When media is supposed to talk about the falling GDP and farmers’ bill. It still keeps concentrating on topics like the NCB drug case, the celebrities catching corona, etc.

Interference with the administration of justice is not permissible freedom and not an unreasonable restriction. Before placing the criticism of judgment in public, all concerned in the publication has to see whether such criticism has crossed the limit of fair criticism. In the case of the Ayodhya land dispute, the media crossed all the limits of fair criticism and concentrated to cause an affray and agitate Hindu-Muslim riots.

 

IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

“Whoever controls the media controls the mind”

― Jim Morrison

 The power of media grew aggressively with the emergence of social media. Today social media has the major power. It controls the youth as per their wish.

Social media giants like Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. keep a check on our personal data, and monitor what we do, and can also predict our next move. They have all the data of our likes, dislikes, current mood, psychological analysis.

 The services we think are supplied free to us are not actually free. It costs us more than what you can ever think, it costs us our beliefs and mindsets. They are paid for by advertisers. Sometimes these advertisers are also political parties or majority of times ruling parties. These companies monitor us all the time. They know when we are lonely, depressed, and happy. Even they know your personality traits, which make it very easy to control you and your thinking. “A form of government which controls the mind of people is never a free form of democracy .it is a morphed autocracy in the name of democracy”.

PROBLEMS WITH MODERN DAY MEDIA PRACTICES

The media was supposed to tell us about the real things of society and our environment but instead of showing that it is serving us politically crafted things(manipulated news in favoring the odds such that it doesn’t affect them in the future), which further leads to the brainwashing of less intelligent/underprivileged people.

It is a well-known marketing strategy “serve them what they want, and your numbers will grow” Indian media interpreted it in their version “show them what they want to see, and your T.R.P will grow” which is one of the major reason Indian media is as mediocre as local Pan Shop owner. Media nowadays only works on “MASALA” with extravaganza. They’ll manipulate the simplest news and twist the hell out of it to make it dramatic to give you a dopamine boost. Media houses will even share the most confidential news which wasn’t supposed to go anywhere for the sake of some more viewers and money (e.g. When the plane of wing commander Abhinandan crashed in Pakistan and He refused to tell about any of his identity except his name and position. Indian media showed his whole Bio-data in public.). Media houses will announce the culprit without even court announcing it and will have no shame ruining their life.

 

SUGGESTIONS

Media is supposed to be the 4th pillar of democracy and pillars are made to make a building strong but if it is damped the pillars are weak then the whole building will become weak. Here are some of my opinions:-

1. Media shouldn’t be biased it should be majorly about truth.

2. Media aggregators could use codes of ethics and accountability to rank their articles and viewership more highly. In theory, advertisers and subscribers will then pay more for “quality” content.

3. Freedom of speech should be more liberated yet a bit controlled for them.

CONCLUSION

“A person is judged by his appearance and as his first impression, a country’s freedom is judged on the ranking of freedom of press index.” According to the 2020 report on the world press freedom index, India ranked 142 out of 180 countries. Which is even more pathetic as it got dropped from 140 to 142. This can be improved if it starts to deal and work on the principle of its establishment(provide everyone facts) instead of “the made and fed up concept of making a fool out of people, by the reporters, for the Government.” media shackled by government regulations is unhealthy for democracy, but the repercussions of continued accountability of media are even more detrimental. What is expected is not gagging of media, but a restrain on their vigilantism. Measures shall be taken to impede media trials from infringing the rights of citizens, and a clearer set of rights and duties shall be regulated for media personnel for handling legal issues. The courts should be granted the power to punish those who flagrantly contempt them.

Moreover, it’s the citizens who should guard the acts of government and media and condemn them when they slip out of the task allotted to them as it is we the people of India who are empowered to constitute and dissolve them.

Author - 

Aayukta Sharma