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21st Century Journalism in India
Authors: Various
Editor: Nalini Ranjan
Publisher: Sage Publications
Pages: 324
Price: Rs 395

The digital-driven speed of the media has converted what used to be a seamless flow of information into what has become a torrent, the sheer pace of which is self-defeating because there is less and less time and space even to pay attention to it.

With attention spans dwindling to ridiculous lows, the future that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes may well be there, says a new book.

The fatal attraction of the market and the consequent alienation from the civil society has serious implications for the future of the media, say writers in the book 21st Century Journalism in India.

Journalists and non-journalist writers in the book feel that should the media place itself purely at the mercy or bidding of the market, it would forfeit its right to the moral and statutory high ground it has enjoyed all along as a fourth pillar of democracy,

The print media seems to be in a tailspin from which there is no escape in sight. With the price wars having reduced cover prices of most newspapers to token amounts, the reliance on advertisement revenues is fostering a dependency syndrome which may be difficult to break from, the book says.

Writers in the book feel communication in the public realm oscillates between struggle and submission, as the media witnesses the encounters between the government and the community or their representatives. The media constitutes a third voice and does not always substitute for the people, they say.

The turn of the century globally saw a frenetic spate of mergers and takeovers; the first half of 2000 alone recording deals totalling 300 billion dollars. When the dust settled, nine trans-national corporations were in control of the global media market: General Electric, AT&T and Liberty Media, Disney, AOL-Time Warner, Sony, Newscorp, Viacom, Vevendi and Bertelsmann.

Although irrepressibly buoyant and bold on all domestic issues, the American media tended to consensually freeze when it came to the US foreign policy or the American way of life, irrespective of whether the rest of the world wanted or needed it.

The Indian media have happily acquitted themselves better on this score. Virtually nothing is taboo to the press. Over the last few years one cannot help feeling that the market is running away with the media. As competition for eyeballs among the satellite channels began heating up and as television began to stake a claim for a larger share of the advertisement spent, the print media went into a spin trying to re-invent itself. In the ensuring race to the bottom between tabloidised print and dumbed-down television, the net loser was the reader and the viewer, the book says.

Considering the additional constraints imposed on Indian media practitioners, namely, the need to respect elders, and the fear of offending politicians and persons in high places, there is little chance of journalists here engaging with the lighter side of life, he says.

The book has been divided into four sections - representing the unrepresented dealing with ignored sections of the society as homosexuals, Dalits and other minorities, looking into the coverage of vital areas such as economics, legal issues, science, arts, culture as also humour, media in perspective dealing at different kinds of journalistic practices including photo journalism and, future trends which discusses newer forms of journalism like blogging and citizen journalism.

V K Natraj, former director of Madras Institute of Development Studies alerts the media to its educational role by pointing out that the real difference between the rich and the poor was not merely in respect of wealth between the resources but in terms of access to information. Lack of information in the case of the economically and socially deprived restricted choice and adversely affected their participation in state and society, he says.

Aditi De, a Bangalore-based freelancer says that apart from serious journalists sense of panic that entertainment news could easily spill over into the dreaded realm of tabloidisation, there is the persistent bogey of commercialization confronting the media. Indeed, it is commercialization of the media that has led to shrinking of space for the arts and culture in the Indian media since 200, she says. Media should ponder over this phenomenon, she says.