We’re in the News: Media Values with the Rise of the World Wide Web

ON GLOBAL MEDIA BECOMING MORE LOCAL YET LESS SIGNIFICANT

A look into the changing nature of media and its values

In communication studies, news values can be defined as the amount of significance a news story carries; and several factors, such as the timeliness, influence, prominence and human interest, among others, determine its worthiness. Sorry but nobody cares about your parents, yet it is a front-page news when Omar Sy (of Lupin) says his parents does not know what he has been doing for livelihood. Slightly resembling this concept, media value can be defined, in this context, as the amount of a medium’s significance. In the last couple of decades, the exponential rise of over-the-top (OTT) platforms, satellite television, Internet and localisation of various media outlets have been the foundation on which this concept is built on.

The media value has been changing in the dynamic world of media for good reasons and bad. A cursory glance gives us a better picture as clear as those so-called HD channels on broadcast media.

We’re in the News: Media Values with the Rise of the World Wide Web

The values they’re a-changin’

Two decades ago, we used to enjoy MTV and Channel V a lot but not anymore. Over the years, it changed to MTV India and further, AFAIK, became a reality TV channel. The unending Bollywood music 24×7 was becoming so allergic that one time, local cable TV swapped it with an Indonesian edition in my hometown! We would love to blame it as a qualitative loss but the ground realities tell a different story. According to television and audience surveys, MTV India has been achieving a growth in audience numbers at the rate of 8–10% annually. In fact, 2014 started at a high with an increase in viewership from 10 million GVMs (gross viewership in millions) in January to 15 million GVMs in July of the same year. Apparently, the new crops of viewers and their likes are more important for programme scheduling than those of the die-hard puritans.

As of March 2019, according to Statista, a market and consumer data provider: Zing was the leading youth oriented television channel across India by far with almost 74.6 million weekly impressions from January 23 to January 29, 2021. MTV India (25.24) followed in popularity among youngsters in the country. E24 (7.24) and MTV HD+ (0.93) were in the third and fourth spots respectively. Source: Statista

For one of its former archrivals, Channel V, the situation has been quite different. In fact, the channel is now defunct and one of its owners Star India has replaced it with a sports channel. Perhaps, the only things that are left off these channels is nostalgia of our growing-up days and affinity to pop culture.

This does not mean less people are getting hooked to music vis-à-vis media platforms; and rather it has only been a change in the medium. Like elsewhere, everything has become digital and if we go by the trend, the audience and reach of new pop, underground and independent music around the globe has increased manifold. The emergence of digital media has been ultradynamic. Personally, I prefer Earbits and AccuRadio to Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud and ReverbNation but then it is only a personal choice and we are spoiled for choice.

In this context, music channels have little option to diversify their choice of shows. This trend is succinctly captured in one of the Washington Post’s columns, Light bulbs vs. the Internet, by Robert J Samuelson. He wrote:

‘The new obliterated the old. Railroads displaced wagons and canals—and then gave way to planes for long-distance travel. Cars eliminated buggies. Supermarket chains overwhelmed mom-and-pop groceries. Personal computers outmoded typewriters.’

Then, the video killed the radio star and now the World Wide Web has killed the music channels, and if not reduced them to reality television channels.

It takes a global village

There was once a time in our life when we were delighted to see local news published in national dailies. By these papers, we meant mostly Kolkata-based The Telegraph, and later Guwahati-based The Times of India—which usually reach us as eveningers*, and if not, arrive in bulks if there is a general strike or a transport issue. We are still missing the bus in the 21st century: here, ‘we’ refers to the native people in Manipur, where governance and administration can be best described as medieval. Meanwhile today that excitation has ceased when we read local news in the national media with thanks to the rise of social media also.

A piece on how in the metro media, particularly, the newspapers are eveningers in the town: On Reading National Evening Newspapers

However, these are the days of localisation, thanks to the e-revolution. Also, no media houses can afford to do without an online presence. Now the absence of geographical constraints has made mainland/metro media’s negligence as almost negligible. Now we can access, on one hand, the Washington Posts and the Guardians before we check the Imphal Free Presses and the Sangai Expresses. On the other, we have seen the advent of global newspapers and magazines in Indian and other local editions.

In 2009, the Press Information Bureau and the Ministry of Commerce & Industry issued a press release in this regard: in their own words, their priorities deal with how the union government would be allowing foreign investments in facsimile edition of foreign newspapers. It mentions that ‘the policy for foreign direct investment (FDI) in publication of facsimile edition of foreign newspapers include permitting 100% FDI with prior approval of the Government for the publication of the facsimile edition, provided the FDI is by the owner of the original foreign newspaper whose facsimile edition is proposed to be brought out in India. The policy also specified that, the publication can be undertaken only by an entity incorporated or registered in India under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956.’ (Source: Press Information Bureau)

To take a few examples in print and online media, amongst others, Fortune, Huffington Post, Forbes, Buzzfeed, The Economist, the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal amongst others have their full-fledged Indian editions now. This course of media transformation has a two-sided consequence implying world-class publishers are hopefully taking interest in local stories for the impeccable news and views. However, it has been found that, on more than one occasion, the standard has fallen well below their former self-after localisation, with apparent disregard to the former quality of their global editions—just like MTV India did by catering to a dominant local population group, that is more inclined towards Bollywood, than doing it universally.

We might be missing the point if we overlook the roles, ownership and ambitions of media giants. The only deciding factor is the return on their investment and records show they have been running a brisk business. George Orwell puts it straightforwardly, ‘All the papers that matter live off their advertisements, and the advertisers exercise an indirect censorship over news.’ With quality or without, it is good business as long as the foot soldiers are bringing in more glories while the big shots laugh all the ways to the bank.

Again, another prominent feature is that even after years of this phenomenon, we are stuck in the sideline far away from the mainland, both literally and geographically—and this has resulted in fomenting the cause for one of the existential crises that has been drifting us apart from the global trends. In such a condition the rhetoric on information for growth and communication for development will be mere hokum. Apparently, we live in a parallel universe: the only difference is that we can see the wretchedness clearly in our backyards although we are stormed by glitters and blings and razzle-dazzles a minute after we move out of our homes.

In Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, Edward S Herman and Noam Chomsky elaborated on the propaganda model of media. Their main contention is that the private interests in control of media outlets will shape news and information before it is disseminated to the public using the five information filters: (i) size, ownership, and profit orientation; (ii) advertising license to do business; (iii) sourcing mass media news; (iv) flak and the enforcers; and (v) anti-communism.

Certainly, capitalism has influenced ownership but new media has somehow counterbalanced the one-sided tilt. The rise of Edward Snowdens and Julian Assanges has proven that the top ranking of The Times of India and Hindustan Times in every poll survey are just a part of pop culture, while deeper inside us, we still care for sensibility and rationality. Now we also know it is far better to scan through the Guardians than sink into the various English tabloids to give an example.

Still the concentration of ownership to a few corporations and conglomerates is poised to narrow down the voices and opinions but all’s not lost yet. The solution lies in a rise in the strength of an educated mass and its active participation in shaping the flow of information. If the trend of new media, ranging from citizen journalism to blogging and from independent media houses to non-profit organisations continues, we can safely say that there are hopes left in humanity!

No one can deny the loss of specialness in the media; and it has collectively become exclusive on another totally different platform. The exposure and mass publicity of local artists, the issues of local-is-more-important and the growing influence of local innovation have inherited a few positive tendencies. Never in history have we been able to access the amount of information; so is our power to choose and grasp the contents of global standard. Life has become easier too with much thanks to the world wide web.

For instance, all along we had to rely on limited-stocked bookshops. Portals like Flipkart and Amazon (the latter which has been also localised) have changed the equation while giving us abundant space and time to explore. The choices are unlimited: it only depends on our prudence and informed decisions. Now it does not matter how MTV is broadcasting ridiculous programmes or how many foreign media houses are entering into the market. Now it counts how much we can enhance the media values for our collective good. With great power of the media there must also come great responsibility.

—Concluded.