Media in the Business of Manufacturing Consent

Over the last few years, the Indian media has been obsessed with the most trivial topics. Journalists are more interested in telling the world that India’s burgeoning new middle class finally has access to McDonald’s burgers or the latest international designer labels. They are keen to tell us that Mahendrasingh Dhoni has changed his hairstyle yet again or that Saif Ali Khan has proposed to Kareena Kapoor. They prefer writing about proliferation of weight-loss clinics and beauty contests rather than writing about hunger or lack of clean drinking water. While India has been registering food surplus for the last decade (barring some exceptional years), there are millions of people in India who are starving. Yet, few in the media thought the paradox worth pursuing (Notable exception of P. Sainath)

Dozens of cover stories appeared about India’s automobile revolution in the recent years and there is no story about the lack of reliable public transport system or the fact that bicycle sales, a reliable indicator of rural well-being, have dwindled.

What accounts for the disconnection between mass media and mass reality? The growing corporatisation of the media is largely responsible for this: Businesses believe that the media is a business like any other, not a public forum. Media’s popular contention is that it shows what people really want. Actually it is vice versa. When one is in business, one takes care to see that every stakeholder's interests are protected. E.g. a newspaper promoting beauty contests and elitist lifestyle is sure to get the advertisements for the FMCG products. Who cares about farmers’ suicides? Let’s take another example. In all the major TV channels aired in India in any language, show me a soap about the truly rural issues such as hunger, unemployment or displacement. You won’t find any and the answer is simple. Profits and advertising do not rhyme with socially relevant issues. Ok. Let’s take another example. We all watch the supposedly wildlife channels such as National Geographic or Discovery. We have seen a lion or a tiger chasing the animals for hunt at least hundred times. How many times we have seen what the real issues of deforestation or poaching are? Not many times, right?

Well, so much for the media’s obsession about trivia. Let us also see how media manufactures consent. We have seen numerous examples of how the media, including 'The Economist', initially reacted to the meltdown in the USA. Nobody even agreed that there was a problem till as late as July this year. I read a report wherein all the leading economists had praised the FDI in Iceland as late as July this year. Today, barely 4 months later, the country's top four banks now hold foreign liabilities in excess of $100 billion, debts that dwarf Iceland's gross domestic product of $14 billion & the forex reserves of $ 3 billion.

In one of my next blogs, we will see how powerful the Media is and how a few control what we hear, read or see.