The me­dia sur­rounds us; from the shows we watch on tele­vi­sion and the mu­sic we lis­ten to on the ra­dio, to the books, mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers we read each day. With­out the me­dia, we, the peo­ple in so­ci­ety, would be cut off from the rest of the world. The flow of in­for­ma­tion is im­por­tant for the ex­pan­sion of com­mu­ni­ties and the me­dia aids this. With­out a wide range of in­for­ma­tion, peo­ple's opin­ions and views would be bound­ed and their im­pres­sions and as­sump­tions of the world around them, ex­ploit­ed. Though me­dia is not the on­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion means used to dis­trib­ute the flow of in­for­ma­tion, its sig­nif­i­cance in de­vel­oped coun­tries is worth men­tion­ing as it is the main source of in­form­ing the peo­ple on po­lit­i­cal is­sues or cur­rent af­fairs. It is al­so one of the chief foun­da­tions of en­ter­tain­ment.

Print me­dia has al­ways been a dom­i­nant medi­um through­out the decades in the west­ern civ­i­liza­tion. Me­dia work­ers have to do re­search for their re­ports, which in­clude sift­ing through piles and piles of in­for­ma­tion to sup­port a the­sis and make it more than one thou­sand words in or­der to ex­plain an event, a sit­u­a­tion, or a per­son. Jour­nal­ists have the du­ty to re­port un­bi­ased, ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion as it is gained from re­li­able sources. It is their oblig­a­tion to ob­tain all sides of a sto­ry and to give an ac­count on the good and bad re­sults. There must be a bal­ance of moral and im­moral de­duc­tions in the fi­nal prod­uct.

To­day tele­vi­sion chan­nels and news­pa­pers are mak­ing rapid in­come by cash­ing in on the news in mis­tak­en tech­niques. In the race to be­come the most pop­u­lar and the rich­est, they have bro­ken the laws that me­dia must fol­low while try­ing to build a pro­gres­sive so­ci­ety. There is no re­spect for the prin­ci­ples of the peo­ple and land that they serve. With their per­sua­sive ways, they try to con­trol peo­ple in­stead of sim­ply ad­vis­ing them as they are sup­posed to. While the me­dia is some­times viewed as be­ing over­ly vi­o­lent and greedy in their plight for the lat­est and hottest news, their pur­pose is es­sen­tial in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety so that the peo­ple can keep track of their ad­min­is­tra­tors. The me­dia has the abil­i­ty to hold gov­ern­ments re­spon­si­ble, forc­ing them to ex­plain their ac­tions and de­ci­sions, all of which af­fect the peo­ple they rep­re­sent.

If me­dia did what it was in­tend­ed for, it will be a great force in build­ing the na­tion but, at present, me­dia has be­come a mon­ey-mak­ing sec­tor. In­stead of giv­ing im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion and ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes, all there is on tele­vi­sion, is sen­sa­tion­al de­pic­tions of new sto­ries; their on­ly goal is to get tele­vi­sion rat­ing points. Every is­sue is pub­li­cised for a few days, on most chan­nels around the same time, but when the dra­ma is over, no chan­nel fol­lows up the case to let the pub­lic know what is go­ing on. They con­ceal this by us­ing oth­er heat­ed is­sues. In a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic com­mu­ni­ty, peo­ple should know all their op­tions but the me­dia, which usu­al­ly pro­vides this, is cor­rupt. Tele­vi­sion chan­nels and news­pa­pers act as the mouth­pieces of sev­er­al par­ties and spread the par­ties' ide­olo­gies in­stead of de­liv­er­ing ac­cu­rate news. The pub­lic has to judge on their own by look­ing at dif­fer­ent chan­nels or news­pa­pers for the same news, and then form their opin­ion.

One of the most in­flu­en­tial forces of the me­dia in any so­ci­ety is the abil­i­ty to ef­fect change on both so­cial and gov­ern­men­tal lev­els. The me­dia af­fects peo­ple's per­spec­tive through its di­verse as­sem­blage of medi­ums. Peo­ple can be ei­ther pos­i­tive­ly or neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by these mes­sages. In to­day's world, me­dia has be­come al­most as nec­es­sary as food. Me­dia is a mir­ror of so­ci­ety and plays an out­stand­ing role in strength­en­ing it. The me­dia put the lives of its work­ers in dan­ger dur­ing at­tacks or nat­ur­al dis­as­ters to keep us up-to-date. It is par­tial­ly due to the me­dia that aware­ness of many prob­lems is spread­ing in the so­ci­ety. The me­dia has be­come so in­volved in our lives that to recog­nise its im­pact on us, we need to step back and make a con­scious ef­fort to think about how it shapes our lives and what those in the me­dia are say­ing.

Me­dia is an in­te­gral part of our so­ci­ety, but too much in­ter­ven­tion in every­thing is a dis­turb­ing mat­ter. Some­times, just for the sake of a high­er in­come, in­signif­i­cant news is giv­en so much de­tail and so much pri­or­i­ty, that the re­al news is hard­ly no­ticed. Like sci­ence it is a tool, which we have to use by our judg­ment to pro­vide all round sat­is­fac­tion and safe­ty. In spite of be­ing cere­bral­ly bi­ased, the sig­nif­i­cance of me­dia can­not be ig­nored, es­pe­cial­ly in this age in which glob­al­iza­tion and lib­er­al­iza­tion have be­come well known. In this over­all orb, known as the Earth, the tasks and du­ties of the me­dia are in­creas­ing day by day and there is still a lot to be done for the bet­ter­ment of so­ci­ety.

Chamalee Ram­nar­ine

Na­pari­ma Girls' High School