(The writer is a PhD scholar at Punjab University and a media practitioner in a TV channel)
The human being, the most privileged creature on earth, since its birth, had been using different modes of communication to say its heart out and to hear its near and dear ones. With the evolution of social life, this species has evolved several methods and utilized many tools to exchange its point of view and to differ with other’s thoughts as sharing of information is one of the instincts of the human being, which not only is its distinctive feature but the reason to be called the supreme creatures also.
The process of communication went through numerous stages at various points of time in history, which involved Linguistics, Phonetics, and Semantics-based on diversified languages spoken, different words pronounced, and varied meanings understood. The dissemination of information by the homo-sapiens in the primitive age was sometimes in the form of abrupt lines drawn on the walls of caves, and at times in medieval ages, the carvings on the places of worship and paintings in cultural centres had served as the means of spreading the word, whereas pre-modernism epoch witnessed the traditional ways of correspondence on papers through letters however with the inventions bestowed by modern era this practice improved by leaps and bounds.
Human history has witnessed much warfare, starting from traditional warfare and guerilla warfare for centuries. The first half of the twentieth century underwent modern warfare in which the whole world was at daggers drawn twice, whereas its second half mostly consisted of psychological warfare along with cold warfare followed by proxy warfare but this century revolves around only media warfare with every possible propaganda tools in vogue including public relations, opinion formation, image building, communication strategy, media policy, advertising campaign and publicity drives.
At present, we live in the age of globalization and an era of science and technology where the words are weapons and the satellites are artillery, and this situation has given birth to a new paradigm of information haves and information have-nots, which is a shift from previous parameters, of economic haves and economic have-nots.
This millennium started with many diversified facets of media globally, and Pakistan was not alien to the fast-growing media revolution, which has transformed the social fabric around the globe altogether by giving birth to a very vibrant civil society and well-informed public.
During the first decade of this century, there was a mushroom growth of private television networks in Pakistan, specifically news channels in national and regional languages, as well as a couple of in international languages also, and some of the entertainment channels popped up to create a new audience and cater their needs which were perhaps not identified at the time of their inception.
“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” was an old saying which may be rephrased to “Freedom corrupts and absolute freedom corrupts absolutely” after having a critical analysis of the electronic media scenario in Pakistan.
Journalistic ethics and professional codes have succumbed to the injuries of the “rat race of rating” in electronic media, like there is a long-existing “vicious circle of circulation” in print media to mar missionary journalism. The individual journalists, as well as the media organizations, are ironing out to be more attractive rather than being a core objective contributor in the prevailing media industry, which aims at commercial business rather than social service.
Mostly the media discourses deliberate the state and its institutional control over media, but lesser is discussed on declining norms of objectivity, falling prey to the media moguls hailing from other industries and landing in the field of media to safeguard their ulterior motives. The audience, whether readers, listeners, or viewers, are in the clutches of commercialism, where ethics are merely a myth in front of gruesome reality and are victims to practically forced exposure, perception, and retention rather than theoretically described selective exposure, perception, and retention.
Human, fundamental and constitutional rights, the press laws and code of ethics, rules, and regulations designed by authorities, the terms like defamation, libel, slander, and contempt, the moral obligations, societal norms, and etiquettes conceivably are just the theories till now in our country and are not in vogue as far as the practice of electronic media is concerned.
The viewers are glued 24/7 to the screen of this “idiot-box”, deeming it to be an anecdote for all the miseries of their lives and are having wishful thinking about electronic media especially to be their liberator in every woe and worry, be it a psychological or physical issue, economic or financial constraint, industrial or political crisis and even for a religious or social debate.
The whole scenario enunciated depicts that today the media is turned into “Madia”, which has not only gone mad itself but is also maddening the audience instantaneously who are having depression and dejection, despair and disappointment, frustration and melancholy from each word, sentence, paragraph, and article in print media and through every shot, scene, episode and programme in electronic media.
Breaking news is “broken news” indeed as the actualities are defaced by the brains behind tickers and newscasters maim in front of teleprompters to captivate more audience where fuss is created with flowery language, rhyming words, suggestive tone along with dramatic impacts while presenting traumatic facts which is an obvious violation of code of conduct in books.
The “yellow journalism” has changed to “bellow journalism” now, where everyone having a microphone is yelling and shouting at others to spur sensationalism and add anarchy rather than inculcating tenets of mass awareness, social mobilization, advocacy, and persuasion with the basic canon of information, education, and entertainment. To cut the story short, our media is not sensitizing the public and may be termed as sensationalizing “madia”.
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