Introduction –
The stages of Evolution of media include print, radio, television, internet, social media, shaping communication & information dissemination. To make India’s democracy an ideal democracy, it is necessary to create people like Martin Luther and Voltaire, who changed the whole of Europe and America from the 15th century to the 19th century with their ideas. It was said in the monarchy, the king can never be wrong and the law made by the king can never be wrong, on opposing it, in most monarchies that person was considered to be the subject of punishment. This cannot happen in a democracy, in a democracy where the people decide the king, it gets the support of the media to keep the democracy under control.
The purpose of mentioning this topic in this article is that our country, or as you say, in today’s world, most of the countries run by democracy. In which the king will be who, these people decide and how the king should behave, it decides the awakened people of the society. In a democracy, the media works to tell the questions of the society to the system of democracy, so it has great importance in a democracy.
Talking about the Constitution of India, the constitution does not provide full power to any one institution, they work to control each other. In this, these three institutions work mainly Parliament, Judiciary and Executive and the media is considered as the voice of democracy.
Therefore, in our constitution, freedom of speech has been considered as a fundamental right of all citizens and no constitutional institution can suppress it. That is why we consider media as the fourth pillar of democracy. Here we will know what is media, what is the history of media, what are the types of media and how social media has affected our society and what will be its future for democracy.
How Media was created ? –
A book was published in English, whose name is Brief History of Human Kind, whose author Yuval Noah Harari says in this book that the spiritual belief of the society played an important role in the process of formation of society, due to which the rulers of that time could keep the society united. .
If this principle is applied today, then the media determines what should be the beliefs of the society, which makes it possible for the ruler to control the society. If the ruler does not have control over the sole society, then it becomes a very difficult task for him to run a democracy. Humans created language to communicate with each other before society was established.
It is not that other creatures in the universe do not communicate with each other, they certainly do, but humans have put their language on paper, in that era, on stones and on many things, they kept themselves by writing or marking them. He was successful in separating and establishing dominance.
Due to which the media was born and at the same time the society was also created, due to which people started sharing information with each other and the king started using it to maintain his polity.
What is media? –
Media means such a medium by which people can keep information about each other, can become a means of entertainment, the system of running the society can become a medium of communication, there have been many such reasons for the creation of media and it includes traditional folk art, print media. We know electronic media, and today’s social media.
Through which we share each other’s thoughts. Our democracy has not developed so much like America, for this the role of media is very important, which reaches the voice of the society to the government, so the success of democracy depends on the honesty of the media.
History of Media in India –
Modern Media It has been very effective on the society from the British Raj through print media which has played an important role in the independence of India. After the independence of the country, for the first time this electronic medium came into use in India, before this the influence of print media has been very much in India.
Along with this, radio has been a very popular medium before the 1970s. For the first time after 1990, private channels were started in India, in which channels like entertainment, sports, news were produced. After that, be it the live broadcast of news or the 24-hour channel, it captured the media and the traditional media medium started falling behind.
We get to see different TV channels on entertainment, sports, news and many topics in today’s era. After 2017, social media is becoming a very effective medium due to more use of internet, due to which mediums like YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook are ready to replace electronic media in the future.
How Television Media makes Money? –
After the 1990s in India, television media have completely made itself commercially, in which media houses were run by forming a public listed company. Which means that the media house got a massive investment, which is used to raise the level and study on what people want by revising on new topics.
Television media have been made on many such topics related to entertainment, news channels, sports, education, whose most important means of earning is entertainment. Because the more people who watch these channels, the more they earn from entertainment. This channel earns money by promoting and broadcasting paid programs at many commercial business, political, or other levels.
Government advertisement This television media is the most important medium of income because it happens in large quantities. The government gives this favor to the television media because they want to reach their politics to the people, so the interest of both is fulfilled here. In such a large population of India, television media is the simplest and easiest medium of the people, due to which the advertisements shown on these television media are very expensive, so the company earns a lot of money.
Film Industry of India & Media –
If the entire media of India are seen in this money, then 30 billion US dollars is so big, in which the film industry is the most important and leading medium, which we call the medium of entertainment. Every year a lot of films are made in different languages all over India in which only few films are successful in earning good profit. The Bollywood film industry is considered to be the largest film industry in India and the South Industry, it is considered to be the second largest film industry.
The film industry has a lot of influence on the society of India, so it is considered to be the most important media, even though it makes films on two types of subjects, in which parallel films are based on the situation of the real society, which is not considered so commercial. Entertaining films, this industry earns a lot of money, so most of the films we get to see commercial ie masala films.
Films are the most effective medium of thinking of the society, so this media have been doing the work of creating nationalism, religious beliefs and thinking of the society. Used to work to create thinking, which has been replaced by films later. Today, social media like Netflix, YouTube have tried to take this place and movies are broadcast directly on the OTT platform these days.
Effect of Social Media –
Technology has ended the previous media in every era, print media is taking its last breath today electronic media is in danger, because of this social media, which does not require much expenditure to run like print media and electronic media setup Looks like.
Social media has become very popular among the people, because of this, print media and electronic media have always ignored the common people and their problems, due to which the same audience has started expressing their opinion on social media.
The Government is finding it difficult to control social media. Earlier it was easy to control electronic media and print media. But most of the companies running social media are foreign and due to the open economy policy of the 1990s, the government cannot impose more restrictions on them, so it is becoming difficult to control social media.
There have always been allegations on the proposed media that some sections of the society are sitting on control and due to lack of adequate representation, the society has been angry with the proposed media. This has been the reason for the success of social media, so despite the misuse of social media, it has been more successful than electronic media.
Social Media vs Television Media –
After 1990, there was awakening, after 2000, the mobile industry saw a change in the media, after 2017 we reached the Internet to the common people. Installing television media requires a lot of money, which is not used in social media. For a long time, there was a feeling of common people that their problems are not kept on television media, which he himself started writing on social media.
That’s why we get to see topics on social media, unlike the topics that we see on television media today. This has raised questions about the credibility of the television media. The mistake of television media in the past is that they have never given this platform easily to the common people. No matter how much defamation may be given to social media that it is not credible, but through social media the character of television media has come in front of the society, we have to understand this reality.
That’s why people got attracted towards social media, as a result of which today the topic played on social media has to be raised by television media. Broadcasting movies through OTT platform has become possible for any ordinary filmmaker, which was a very difficult task earlier. Ordinary people have started competing with television media by creating their own channel through mediums like YouTube. Therefore, the television media and the film industry are compelled to understand the importance of social media.
Media and Democracy –
In today’s era, we see that on opposing a political party, the person in front considers it a supporter of the opposing party. It does not discuss the main problems of the society like unemployment, inflation, education, poverty, but discusses the problems which are not of lower level.
Therefore, the feeling of hatred towards the established media has started building in the people. Politics wants to use the media for its own benefit, so fair journalism has not been seen today since the British left India.
Two types of ideas run the media house, out of which none works for the problem of ordinary people, it is said that it works for a system. Therefore, journalism and media creation based on neutral facts is very much for the democracy of India. is important.
Types of Media –
- Traditional Media – Drama, Folk Art
- Print Media – News Papers, Book Publishing, Education System
- Electronic Media – Television, Radio
- Social Media – Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter
- Cinema, Theater Industries
- Web Media – Blogs, Web Sites, YouTube
Media and Government Policy of India –
Although the Constitution of India has given freedom of speech to every citizen of the country under the fundamental right, but many times an attempt has been made to control it from the side of the government. An attempt has been made to control the media by amending the constitution.
Whoever the government is, it sees a loss on the news run against it, so it always wants to control the media in some way or the other. The awakening of the people towards democracy in India is not like Europe or America, so many governments want to get uncontrolled power.
As long as there was electronic media, it was easy to control it, but say social media or digital media, it runs under international law and agreement, which is not as easy to control, so the government wants to improve it by making laws.
The argument of electronic media is that the news carried by social media is not as practical as the established media and many false news are spread by social media, but this argument is absolutely wrong because the international news of the main media and sometimes the news of the country without practical it occurs.
Before the court proceedings, the media convicts the accused, in which many big media houses make this mistake. Talking about the uncontrolled news of social media, for this the government needs to strengthen the cyber law and not control it.
Critical Analysis of Traditional Media –
The ruling class has been using the media for thousands of years to maintain its power and even today in almost all the countries of the world, the ruling class has been using it for its benefit. An ideology is established by the media in the society, so that’s how the thinking of the society should be, it is controlled through the media.
In a democracy in which society is awakened from political point of view, this media has no effect on it, but in a society where people do not have any knowledge about politics, that media is misused. Talking about India, the main media prepares a media platform on the main problem less and the ruling class wants to discuss more on it.
If the media wants, a revolution can happen in any country, so much media is influential, but the ruling class uses the media according to its own accord. To keep it under his control, he applies, however much winning power is required. Social media has reduced the importance of this traditional media, but still it maintains its influence through money and power. Ethical journalism is a very difficult task to do and sustain.
Conclusion –
How much knowledge you have, how much degree you have, it does not decide whether you are honest, in the same way, whatever the media may be, if there is no participation from all levels of the society, then it is the failure of democracy. All the intellectual people of the society have to consider this and leave the mentality of inequality like it happened in Europe and America.
The sooner the intellectuals of our society understand this, the more the country will develop. If other people develop then what will happen to us, we have to leave this small thinking and always be ready for competition, this develops our intelligence and leaders always become like this. The Ignorance of others should never be our merit, that is why we fail at the international level.
Fair media is possible with adequate representation of the society, honesty and the awakening of democracy, corruption is not a disease, it is a symptom and its root disease is the thinking of our inequality, we have to understand it. In today’s era of information and technology and in globalization, it is not practical to say that all the institutions are under our control. That is why we should happily accept the freedom of the internet and social media than only a true democracy can be established.
