Media and Society - 3 Units - Complete Study Material

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Open Elective - Media Studies
COMMUNICATION
Communication is often considered as an activity only. In actuality, it is a process. The process of

communication includes transmission of information, ideas, emotions, skills, and knowledge. This
is done with the help of symbols, words, pictures, figures, graphs, drawings, and illustrations, etc.
Again, "communication" is the process by which we understand and in turn try to be understood
by others. It is dynamic, constantly changing and shifting in response to the overall situation.
Therefore, "communication" can be described as "the interchange of thoughts or ideas". This is
also referred as sharing of meaning. Again, communication is viewed as creation and transmission
of information, consisting of distinctive stimuli, from a source to a recipient.
Speaking about the role of communication in everyday life, one can say that communication is a
system through which the messages are sent, and feedback received. So it is not a one-way process.
Rather it is a two-way process.
When a baby sees its mother’s face for the first time, communication happens. When someone
steps out onto a beach and the air touches his nose and the smell of the ocean comes into his mind,
communication happens.
When the Indian Parliament passes and the President signs a new bill to curb monopolies in the
market, communication happens. When a computer in Delhi calls up a computer in Tokyo and
transmits a message, communication happens.
Communication is the modus operandi of social and commercial intercourse. It is communication,

which gets the world going. It is the lifeblood of any organization. It is the ability of mankind to
communicate across barriers and beyond boundaries that has ushered the progress of mankind. It
is the ability of fostering speedy and effective communication around the world, which has shrunk
the world and made ‘globalization’ a reality.
Communication is at once the cause and the consequence of a powerful world. Development of
varied and sophisticated means of communication over a period of time has brought human beings
across the globe closer and has also facilitated transmission of thoughts and ideas. The expanse of
communication, therefore, is worldwide. And it truly encompasses human life in all its facets and
Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

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endeavors. It galvanizes action among individuals, in organizations, in society and the world
community at large. Understanding the power of communication is essential for the success of any
human endeavor.
NEED FOR COMMUNICATION
Man is a social being. He is a member of society. As a member of society he has to constantly

interact with his fellow beings. He has emotions, feelings, likes and dislikes. He has to give vent
to all these. He needs to convey and let others know what he feels. In other words, whatever be the
environment in which a person is placed, he has to build links, establish relationships and have
connections. The need for communication arises from man’s desire to express himself in a
meaningful manner. As stated earlier, communication is the modus operandi of social interaction
or social intercourse. As a member of the family, as a member of the social group, as a part of the
work team, man communicates.
Human beings are emotional. They are also rational beings. They are endowed with the faculty of
thinking. Human beings are creative. Human beings are intelligent and have brainpower. In order
to give a meaningful expression to their creativity, intelligence, thoughts and ideas, they resort to
communication.
The need for communication arises from the need to emote, to interact, to express one’s ideas and
thoughts and the need to relate and to connect.
The factors responsible for growing importance of communication are as follows:
1. Global Business Environment: Now days, organizations operate at the transnational

level. This needs dealings with people of different cultures and language.
2. Large-Scale Operations: With the expanding economies, businesses are being done on
large scale. Consequently, size and decentralization of the organization increases.
Coordinating the whole affair needs effective communication.
3. Technological Advancement: With fast moving technology, the methods and techniques
of work change very fast. Making people understand the newer ways of doing things need
effective communication.

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4. Role of Information: The organizations need for information has increased. The business
environment is changing very fast, and to keep pace with this changing environment,
organizations have to be abreast with the latest.
5. Change in Management Style: Earlier the style of working was: management decides and
orders workers to perform. Over a period of time, there has been a substantial change in
this approach. Now the emphasis is on participative management. This requires better and
more effective communication.
6. Need for Better Human Relations and Higher Motivation Level: With the growing
aspirations of work force and its awareness, keeping the workers motivated and
maintaining good relations with them is an important task of the management. This again
requires better and more effective communication.
7. Increasing Social Role: Modern business is being recognized as a social institution. It has
to deal with different segments of society who are in different capacities, such as its
shareholders, customers, suppliers, trade unions, media, government, etc.
EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION
The art of communication is as old as civilization. The art of communication, in fact, is older than
the written word or even the spoken word. Man learnt to communicate even before he learnt to
speak, read and write. And communication is not unique to human beings alone. Communication
pervades the animal world as well. Birds and animals also communicate. The sounds they make
do carry meanings. The chirping of the birds, the roaring of the lions, the hissing of the snakes, the
whining of the dogs, are expressive.
Much before he learnt to speak, man had learnt to express himself through sounds, gestures and
actions. If we observe closely, we can see that he continues to use sounds, gestures and actions to
communicate even to this day. It is not that those who can’t speak, read or write cannot
communicate. A blind man, like the illiterate person, resorts to oral and nonverbal communication.
A dumb person, unable to speak, resorts to gesticulations and lip-reading.
The art of communication has, however, evolved over the years. From sounds, grunts, actions,
gestures and gesticulations to the spoken word and thereafter to the world of reading, writing and
modern and sophisticated methods of communication, it has been a long yet fascinating and

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rewarding journey. As he progressed in this fascinating journey, man learnt to interpret sounds,
understand actions and use gesticulations. Messages were conveyed through sound, shouts and
drumbeats.
The spoken word added a new dimension to the world of learning. Sages and saints of the yore
learnt to pass on sacred verses and holy texts through the world of mouth. Then man started using
symbols and pictures to convey messages. Early writings were on stones and leaves.
As man progressed, communication evolved further. The invention of printing, as we all know,
revolutionized the process of communication. In terms of its reach the written word took a quantum
leap. Side by side, various inventions made possible the recording of the spoken word and its
transmission irrespective of time and distance. Gradually, the emergence of new media added new
dimensions to the world communication.
DEFINITIONS OF COMMUNICATION
Many scholars have defined communication to give us a clearer understanding. Some of such
definitions are stated below:
1. Newman and Summer: Communication is an exchange of ideas, facts, opinions, or

emotions by two or more persons.
2. Herbert A. Simon, “Communication can be defined as any process whereby decisional
premises are transmitted from one member of an organization to another.”
3. In the words of Keith Davis, “Communication is the process of passing information and
understanding from one person to another.”
4. Louis A. Allen defined “Communication is the sum of all the things one person does when
he wants to create understanding in the mind of another. It is a bridge of meaning. It
involves a systematic and continuous process of telling, listening and understanding.”
5. According to American Management Association, “Communication is any behavior that
results in an exchange of meaning.”
6. In the words of Bartol and Martin, “Communication is the exchange of messages between
people for the purpose of achieving common meanings.”

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7. McFarland said “Communication may be broadly defined as the process of meaningful

interaction among human beings. More specifically, it is the process by which meanings
are perceived and understanding reached among human beings.”
Thus, communication is the force that binds the people of a group, or an organization together and
the members can attain a common viewpoint and understanding, as well as cooperation to
accomplish the group’s or organization’s objectives.
CHARACTERISTICS OF COMMUNICATION
1. It is a process of passing information and understanding from one person to another.

2. It is a process of transmitting and sharing of ideas, opinions, facts, etc., in a manner that is
perceived and understood by the receiver of the communication.
3. It is a meaningful interaction among people where the thoughts are transferred from one
person to another.
4. Effective communication depends on the ability to listen (receive) and the ability to deliver
the message.
5. The ultimate object of communication is to foster any attitude, which is necessary for
motivation, cooperation and job satisfaction.
6. Communication discourages misinformation, ambiguity and rumours.
7. It establishes and improves the labour-management relationships.
8. Communication is an integral part of the process of adopting change.
9. It is the vehicle by which information relevant to decision is transferred.
PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNICATION
The following are the principles of communication:
CLARITY: This includes clarity of thought and clarity of expression.
Clarity of thought: The communication cycle begins with the generation of an idea in the mind
of the transmitter. A great deal of clarity is needed at this stage, for if the beginning is fuddled, it
is likely to mar the entire communication process. The communicator must be clear about three
points:

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(i) What is the objective of communication?

(ii) What is to be communicated?
(iii) Which medium will prove to be the most suitable for the purpose?
Clarity of expression: The receiver learns about the idea in the transmitter’s mind through the
coded message. If encoding is faulty, the message may be misinterpreted. So it is important to be
careful while encoding the message. Since most of the messages are transmitted with the help of
word, the transmitter should be careful about the meanings and composition of words.
The following points about the choice of words deserve attention:
(i) Use simple words. Remember that simple and short words are more effective than
pompous and heavy words.
(ii) Use single words for long phrases. A single word is often more effective than long
pompous-looking phrases.
(iii) Use verbs for nouns. Using verbs in place of nouns often brings about simplicity and
clarity.
(iv) Avoid double entendre. We often use words or phrases with two meanings. Such phrases
can be easily replaced by simpler and clearer words.
(v) Use concrete expressions. Concrete expressions create visualize images that are easy to
register. So instead of vague, generalized statements, give define facts (unless you can
derive a particular advantage from being general).
(vi) Prefer active constructions (active voice), as they are easier to understand. If you
deliberately want to create an impersonal style, you may be justified in using passive
constructions. But in ordinary circumstances, it is better to use active constructions.
(vii) Avoid excessive use of the infinitive. Excessive use of infinitive to tends to make the
communication less impressive.
(viii) Avoid jargon. Jargon refers to the special language of a trade, profession, or field of
study. It may refer to words as well as to the style of writing. Jargons create difficulties
of understanding, and make the style formal and stiff, so better avoid jargons in business
communication.

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(ix) Avoid ambiguity. If your message can mean more than one thing, it is ambiguous.
Ambiguity is very often caused by a careless use of personal pronouns. Rajiv told Ramesh
that he was not being considered for promotion. In this sentence, it is impossible to
understand whether it was Rajiv or Ramesh who is not being considered for promotion.
(x) Use short sentences. Whether your communication is oral or written, use short sentences.
Long sentences tend to be complex and demand greater concentration. And nobody has
time or patience for long sentences. To keep your sentences short, you can follow two
very simply rules:
Use one sentence to express only one idea. If a sentence runs beyond 30 words, it is better
to break it up into two sentences.
COMPLETENESS: In communication, completeness of facts is absolutely necessary.

Incomplete communication irritates the reader, for it leave him baffled. If wrong actions follow an
incomplete message, they may also prove expensive. Let us suppose you are ordering shirts by
mail. Your communication must include all the relevant facts – size, colour, catalogue number,
quantity, mode of payment, mode of dispatch, the date by which you need the shirt, etc. In the
absence of any of these details, your order cannot be fulfilled to your satisfaction. You should
organize your message in such a way that the receiver has no doubts about anything contained in
it.
CONCISENESS: A reader’s time is invaluable. Do not make him feel that he is wasting his time
in going through your unnecessarily lengthy letter. Be as brief as possible. Brevity in expression
effectively wins the attention of the reader. However, brevity should not be affected at the cost of
appropriateness, clarity, correctness, completeness or courtesy. In fact, there is no hard and fast
rule for the length of a letter. A letter should be as long or as short as is necessary to tell the story
effectively. A two-page letter may seem short, while a ten-line letter may seem all too long. There
are two tests to ascertain whether a letter is too long. Ask yourself these two questions: “Does if
say more than need be said?” “Does it take too many words for which it must say?”
CONSIDERATION: In our letters and other communication, we must show consideration for the
reader. This can be done in the following ways:

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(i) Adopt the your-attitude. We know that we are primarily interested in ourselves.
Naturally, every other person is interested more in himself than in a third party. It
follows, therefore, that when we write letters to others, they are effective and the
readers respond to out letters well only when we write from their point of view. So to
make out letter more effective, we must avoid I’s and we’s and have as many you’s as
possible. In any case we should not forget the reader’s point of view in the whole of
our letter.
(ii) Avoid gender bias. Now that men no longer dominate the business world, it is
extremely important to avoid gender bias. Using ‘he’ when a message is going to a lady
will certainly cause offence. So take timely precautions.
(iii) Emphasize positive and pleasant facts. On many occasions you may have to refuse
(say ‘no’), regret, disagree, complain, or say ‘sorry’. To say this in plain words and in
a straightforward manner is not difficult, but its effect on the reader’s mind and the
repercussions on the organization could be bad and far-reaching. We swallow
sugarcoated pills without any grumble. Similarly in a business letter, the reader accepts
calmly and coolly all the no’s, regret’s, and sorry’s if they are expressed in a positive
manner. An approach with a negative beginning or a negative connotation irritates the
reader and makes him feel that you lack business manners and the gentlemanliness. In
other words, a positive and pleasant approach says ‘no’ but retains the customer’s
goodwill.
COURTESY: In business we must create friendliness with all those to whom we write.
Friendliness is inseparable from courtesy. And courtesy demands a considerate and friendly
behaviour towards others.
CORRECTNESS:
i) Give correct facts. Business communication often leads to expensive operations. So you
should be sure that you are transmitting correct facts. In fact you should not transmit any
message unless you are absolutely sure of its correctness. If you are not satisfied, you should
immediately verify it from a reliable source, like an encyclopedia, an office file, a colleague,

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a dictionary, or even a grammar book. It your message involves any legal matter; you should
know the correct legal position before you commit anything.
ii) Send your message at the correct time. All messages must be transmitted and responded to
at the most appropriate time. Outdated information is useless. In fact, communication is
important, and transmitting outdated information would mean wastage of time, money and
human resources. The principle of correct timing also stipulates that you communicate your
message at a time when it is likely to prove most effective.
CREDIBILITY:
If the sender can establish his credibility, the receiver has no problems in accepting his statement.
Establishing credibility is not the outcome of a one-shot statement. It is a long-drawn out process
in which the receiver through constant interaction with the sender understands his credible nature
and is willing to accept his statements as being truthful and honest. Once the credibility of the
sender has been established, attempts should be made at being courteous in expression. Much can
be accomplished if tact, diplomacy and appreciation of people are woven in the message. Courtesy
implies taking into consideration both viewpoints as well as feelings of the receiver of the message.
A courteous message is positive and focused at the audience. It makes use of terms showing respect
for the receiver of message and it is not biased.
Credibility of the communicator has been systematically analyzed over the years, often as relating
to the speaker. Several classic but still relevant studies suggest that five decisions are made
regarding a communication source.
Competence – Does the audience perceive the message sender as communicating honestly?
Character - Does the sender of the message know his or her message/
Composure – Does the sender give the impression of being clam and collected?
Sociability – Does the sender come across as a likable individual?
Extroversion – Does the source exhibit outgoing tendencies rather than timidity?
The way we communicate is a huge factor on how successful we are in life. If we communicate
effectively, it gives us more credibility in our jobs as well as personal life. Using the 7 C’s of

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communication, with your message, you will become an effective communicator and find more
success in your interactions with people.
COMMUNICATION SYSTEM
A communications system is a collection of communications equipment that is integrated into a

coherent system. These allow different people to stay in touch over a geographical system. One
major application is in disaster response.
Typical examples of the communication system are Radio telegraphy, Mobile communication,
Radio and TV broadcasting and so on. Now-a-days communication is done through website, email,
chat and so on.
FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNICATION
According to David Berlo, the purpose of communication is to enable human beings to meet their
basic human needs and to be able to grapple with daily requirements. These include the ability to
give and take orders, make requests, and comply with requests of others. Berlo further says:
"Again, communication enables us to study social organizations, economic relationships, cultural
values etc." Therefore, it is crucial that the content and objective of the communication of a
message are of relevance to human beings in their daily life.
In a society like ours, mass media have a responsible role to play in fostering democracy, plurality
and communal harmony through the functions listed below.
Information and education.
Socialization
Entertainment
Political awareness
Cultural transmission
Catalyst to development

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Information and education functions
Mass media carry a lot of information which are essential for our day to day life. We get
examination results, weather forecasts, current affairs, traffic regulations, alerts, precautions,
government policies etc. from mass media. The core of media's information function is performed
by the media content called news. Good media try to carry accurate, objective and complete
information since biased or incomplete reports will keep the audience away from the media.
Mass media are mass educators too. Education is systematically organized information with
predefined objectives. Schools and colleges are the primary source of formal education in our
society. After finishing their formal education, members of the society depend on mass media for
life-long education.
They provide the society with updated educational content on a wide variety of subjects at the
lowest cost. News based contents like reports, features, photos, cartoons and editorials and non-
news contents like advertisements educate people about the newest trends in their surroundings.
Mass media assist formal education system also, by publicizing information on educational
programmes, publishing special educational supplements and inspiring society to acquire higher
education.
Socialization
Mass media function as an agency for socialization. Socialization means empowering people to
acquire norms and experiences of the group as a whole, to maintain cultural consensus and
communal harmony. It is through mass media that we know the cultural and social norms of
various groups in our society. On the basis of this information, individuals honour others and
behave according to the common values and thus create an integrated society.
Entertainment
We all need entertainment to break the monotony of our hectic, stressful life and divert our
attention from the troubles and tensions. All media have entertainment content. Newspapers
publish cartoons, comics, puzzles and special weekend supplements. The lion's share of magazine
content such as short stories, novels, satires and comics are also intended to entertain the audience.

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Movies are another big stock for entertainment. Broadcast media such as television and radio
primarily concentrate on entertainment function through their programmes based on sports, film,
serials, music, dance, comedy, animation and fashion shows. Nowadays, entertainment has
become a big industry comprising motion picture companies, music firms, theatre groups and game
developers.
Political functions
If you analyze the mass media, be it television or newspapers, most of their content, especially
news, is centered on politics in our society. We see our leaders criticize officials and political
leaders and advocate for better living conditions during panel discussions on television. Similarly,
journalists expose corruption, show up developments, and condemn or praise political activities
considering their merits. Actually, these actions of the media make our democracy vibrant. Thus
mass media assume a key role in setting the agenda for the entire political system and policy
making by forming public opinion on various issues. This process is called agenda setting function.
Mass media do this by highlighting some issues and avoiding the others. There are instances in
which business tycoons and political leaders misuse this agenda setting ability of media to keep
their vested interests.
Likewise, media keep themselves alert about misdoings and violations. We call the mass media as
watchdog or guardian angel of democratic society. This function is as important as that of other
estates of democracy - the legislature, the bureaucracy and the judiciary. Thus the media is
regarded as the Fourth Estate of Democracy.
Cultural transmission
Mass media are the bridge between our past and present. They report day to day affairs which will
become the history of tomorrow. The best records of modern history are newspapers of yester
years. We get our cultural tradition from history and we follow the best of them. In keeping our
culture flowing, media play a vital role. It focuses on the genuine aspects of our culture and points
out the undesirable trends.
Do media have any role in introducing new life styles and values? The answer is certainly
affirmative. We all imbibe new fashions from films and fashion magazines and television

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programmes. You might have watched various programmes that introduce fashions, gadgets, food
items, vehicles and the like. In short, media enrich our culture in two ways:
a) Transmitting culture and heritage from generation to generation and

b) Introducing and spreading cultural values across various segments of the society.
Development support communication
You might have seen reports in newspapers urging the authorities to build new roads and bridges
in your locality or campaigning for betterment of the living conditions of underprivileged classes.
Mass media report problems faced by people in different walks of life and make the administrators
aware of them. Media also make people aware of their rights, the details of government subsidies,
development policies etc. They point out the merits and demerits of certain projects. In short, the
media support development either being the advocates of government sponsored development or
critics of development projects which needs to be amended. This development oriented function
of media is termed as Development Communication.
Communications Process
The communication process consists of several components: Sender, Message, Encoding,

Channel, Receiver, Decoding, Feedback, Noise.

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1. Sender: The sender or the communicator generates the message and conveys it to the receiver.
He is the source and the one who starts the communication.
2. Message: It is the idea, information, view, fact, feeling, etc. that is generated by the sender and
is then intended to be communicated further.
3. Encoding: The message generated by the sender is encoded symbolically such as in the form
of words, pictures, gestures, etc. before it is being conveyed.
4. Channel/Media: It is the manner in which the encoded message is transmitted. The message
may be transmitted orally or in writing. The medium of communication includes telephone,
internet, post, fax, e-mail, etc. The choice of medium is decided by the sender.
5. Decoding: It is the process of converting the symbols encoded by the sender. After decoding
the message is received by the receiver.
6. Receiver: He is the person who is last in the chain and for whom the message was sent by the
sender. Once the receiver receives the message and understands it in proper perspective and acts
according to the message, only then the purpose of communication is successful.
7. Feedback: Once the receiver confirms to the sender that he has received the message and
understood it, the process of communication is complete.
8. Noise: It refers to any obstruction that is caused by the sender, message or receiver during the
process of communication. For example, bad telephone connection, faulty encoding, faulty
decoding, inattentive receiver, poor understanding of message due to prejudice or inappropriate
gestures, etc.
Noise is of different types depending on the nature and reasons of the distortion. They are:
a) Psychological noise: Any communication error due to the psychological reasons. Ex. A
fearful audience can’t enjoy the musical programme.
b) Semantic noise: Language related problems in communication. Ex. Poor grammar,
complex sentence structure, rare vocabulary etc.

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c) Contextual noise: If communication takes place in inappropriate time or place, message is

not conveyed well. Ex. Wishing compliments during a funeral function or an outdoor
meeting at noon in a hot summer.
d) Channel noise: Medium related communication barrier. Ex. Poor signal affecting picture
clarity of television.
INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA AND CULTURE
The word "culture" derives from a French term, which in turn derives from the Latin "colere,"
which means to tend to the earth and grow, or cultivation and nurture. Culture is the sum of total
of the learned behaviour of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of
that people and are transmitted from generation to generation. "Culture encompasses religion,
food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or
wrong, how we sit at the table, how we greet visitors, how we behave with loved ones, and a
million other things," says Cristina De Rossi, an anthropologist at Barnet and Southgate College
in London.
Culture describes a certain set of customs, ideas and social behavior of a group of similar people
in a society. Geographical borders usually segregate cultures. Some characteristics like language,
religion, food habits, social norms, music and arts stay specific in one particular culture. It is also
defined as the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life)
shared by people in a place or time.
Throughout the world, we have a variety of cultures. Cultures have been maintained from time
immemorial and have been handed down from one generation to another. Cultures help people
connect with each other and build communities, within the same cultural backgrounds. Individuals
belonging to the same culture are usually like-minded and have the same ancestral values. Culture
is important to us because it defines our evolutionary identity. Culture helps us understand our
ancestral values and gives us the very meaning of life. It also makes us unique from other parts of
the world. When born in a particular region, we grow up by learning our regional culture and the
society shapes our lives to become what we are today! Traditional culture of a community keeps
us bonded forever.

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Following a culture instills moral values in us. Every culture has its share of knowledge and beliefs
which make us better human beings. It makes us responsible people who can co-exist with each
other in a harmonious society. Cultural traditions keep us disciplined. Every culture has certain
norms and laws laid down, which if followed leads to peaceful existence. The rules were made for
a reason and should be followed rightly. Neglecting cultural traditions is not wise and should not
be kept as an option.
Detailed study about every aspect of our culture can give us profound knowledge. Cultures never
demand blind followers. Everything is well explained and accounted for in history. Studying about
them will make us more knowledgeable. Every culture teaches us to co-exist with all the other
cultures in the world. Cultural teachings always aim for peace. They teach us to live
compassionately and respectfully with everyone, so that peace prevails.
Cultures teach us the real meaning of life. Every phase of our life demands different actions and
our culture teaches us that. As we grow up and grow old, our culture holds our hand and directs us
towards the right path. Cultural traditions were made by our experienced ancestors who wanted to
pass on their valued knowledge about life to every generation of mankind henceforth, to make
their survival easier. Cultural traditions teach us to be responsible human beings. A culture-less
and lawless human being is just another animal. Our culture and society make us be the responsible
entities that we are.
Types of Culture
It may seem obvious that there are a multitude of cultural differences between societies in the
world. After all, we can easily see that people vary from one society to the next. It is natural that a
young woman from rural Kenya would have a very different view of the world from an elderly
man in Mumbai—one of the most populated cities in the world. Additionally, each culture has its
own internal variations. Sometimes the differences between cultures are not nearly as large as the
differences inside cultures however.
High Culture
Do you prefer listening to opera or hip hop music? Do you read books of poetry or celebrity
magazines? In each pair, one type of entertainment is considered high-brow and the other low-

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brow. Sociologists use the term high culture to describe the pattern of cultural experiences and
attitudes that exist in the highest class segments of a society. People often associate high culture
with intellectualism, aesthetic taste, political power, and prestige.
Popular Culture
The term popular culture refers to the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in
mainstream society. Popular culture events might include a parade, a baseball game, or a rock
concert. Rock and pop music—“pop” short for “popular”—are part of popular culture. In modern
times, popular culture is often expressed and spread via commercial media such as radio,
television, movies, the music industry, publishers, and corporate-run websites. Unlike high culture,
popular culture is known and accessible to most people.
Subculture
A subculture is just as it sounds—a smaller cultural group within a larger culture; people of a
subculture are part of the larger culture, but also share a specific identity within a smaller group.
Thousands of subcultures exist within India. Ethnic groups share the language, food, and customs
of their heritage. Other subcultures are united by shared experiences.
Countercultures
They are a type of subculture that rejects some of the larger culture’s norms and values. In contrast
to subcultures, which operate relatively smoothly within the larger society, countercultures might
actively defy larger society by developing their own set of rules and norms to live by, sometimes
even creating communities that operate outside of greater society.
Cults, a word derived from culture, are also considered counterculture groups. They are usually
informal, transient religious groups or movements that deviate from orthodox beliefs and often,
but not always, involve allegiance to a charismatic leader.
Media and Culture
Mass media is a form of media where transmission and communication takes place across society
to large number of people at the same time. Media can be classified as print media which includes

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newspaper, magazines, journals, pamphlets, leaflets, printed advertisements etc. whereas audio-
visual or electronic media includes television, films, radio, computers and internet etc. Mass media
in India is that part of media which aims at reach a wide audience in India. Mass media is very
powerful means of influencing the masses. There has been a tremendous growth in the field of
mass media after globalization. This has in turn affected the culture to a great extent.
Media plays a cardinal role in disseminating our daily life cultural practices. It is said to reflect
our culture norms and values and it has widened our choices and increased cultural expression
with flow of information at planetary level. Cultural values also shape mass media messages when
producers of media content have vested interests in particular social goals.
The present situation seems equivalent to the past but with the emergence of the sophisticated and
modern mass media the culture seems really threatened from the outside particularly from the
American culture. The situation is so threatening, that the present status is called as cultural
imperialism. Presently, India is regarded as a multi-cultural society similar to that of U.S.A.
Canada and France. In these nations, the cultural trends are always dynamic though the cultural
ethos remains same. Indian Culture, which is one of the oldest and richest cultures, is now a days
posing a serious threat as western culture is establishing it’s our strong base in India and slowly
and gradually wiping the Indian culture. It had already made its presence in Metros and now slowly
heading towards other parts of the country. Westernization has greatly affected our traditions,
customs, family and our respect and love for others. The concept of joint families system is so fast
decreasing that everyone wants to remain aloof from others. Nobody now bother about others and
only care about themselves, which is totally contradictory to our Indian culture which easless used
to teach us to be a part of each other’s joys and sorrows to celebrate the happy moments together
and share the grief together too. Slowly, all our values for which India has the pride is vanishing
and western culture is taking its place. People are blindly following the western culture without
knowing its serious consequences.
Westernization of Indian Culture through Mass Media
The India culture presently presumes to be completely westernized. The media scenario,
particularly the cable television is completely westernized. With the emergence of international
media conglomerates of U.S.A. which acquired the global media poses a threat to the Indian media.

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The prominent American barons like Time- Warner, Disney World, American Online (AOL), Sky
TV (Rupert Murdoch of STAR TV fame) and other media conglomerates spreads a web on the
sky in India. They promote the culture of U.S. A. which shows less good things like academics
development and research in western countries, development programs etc., but shows other things
like violence, sex, reality shows, divorces, extra-marital affairs which may be common to them
but uncommon for us. The youth gets excited with the new concepts and try to test it.
Materialism from the west has overpowered spiritualism of the east. Tradition too, is losing its
footage and becoming a shadow in the recess. It is being branded as obsolete and unproductive.
Modern Indian has failed to realize that culture and tradition is the identity of a race on this globe.
Culture is the gamut of ideas and norms of a society acquired over ages. Even our ancient scriptures
have emphasized the importance of culture. In fact, we Indians are known for our multicolored
and vivid culture which breathes in the rock-cut temples, in the pulsating festivals, in the warm
hospitality of hearts and in our religions. The cultural invasion will not only make us forget our
identity, but will make us ROBOTS in this age of machines. Young people are using new media
technology, including cell phones, personal data assistants, and the Internet, to communicate with
others in the United States and throughout the world.
New communication avenues, such as text messaging, chat rooms, and social networking websites
(e.g., WhatsApp and Facebook), have allowed youth to easily develop relationships, some with
people they have never met in person. This can be regarded as a great merit of westernization of
culture. Because through these sites, anybody can know other's culture and can follow the positive
aspects of the concerned culture. On the other hand, it may proof dangerous as this may lead to
cultural degradation too. New technology has many potential benefits for youth. It allows young
people to communicate with family and friends on a regular basis. New technology also provides
opportunities to make rewarding social connections for those teens and pre-teens that have
difficulty developing friendships in traditional social settings or because of limited contact with
same-aged peers.
In addition, regular Internet access allows young people to quickly increase their knowledge on a
wide variety of topics. However, the recent explosion in technology does not come without
possible risks. Youth can use electronic media to embarrass, harass or threaten their peers.

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Increasing number of teens and pre-teens are becoming victims of this new form of violence.
Although many different terms-such as cyber bullying, Internet harassment, and Internet bullying-
have been used to describe this type of violence and electronic aggression is the term that most
accurately captures all types of violence that occur electronically. Like, traditional forms of youth
violence, electronic aggression is associated with emotional distress and conduct problems at
school. Westernization has given rise to nuclear families. Marriages are fast breaking and our
tolerance and patience has given the answer.
The most affected are, our new blooms, which have sprouted and they find themselves stressed
and isolated in this new atmosphere as there is no one to take care of them when they are left
behind. They will not get the care and love of their grandparents and they find themselves in
crutches where some others shall take care of them. It is very unfortunate that the new sprouts
remain untouched and cut off from our moral values and sanskaras. In today's scenario where both
husband and wife are working there is no one at home to look after them to imbibe the sanskaras
in them as our elders who gives these sanskaras to their grandchildren are not with them anymore.
In to many cases, it is not deliberate but in majority of case the children prefers to remain away
from their parents which is very unfortunate. Contradictory to it Parents feel proud in giving the
western Sanskaras to their children. Children now days are brought up in this western atmosphere.
They are thus kept, miles away from our Indian culture.
There is no harm in giving the knowledge of other cultures and traditions as Indians have made
their presence in every part of the world but it is very necessary that we should have knowledge
of our own culture and traditions too. We should take care that our new sprouts are well versed
with Indian culture and its values and it is the responsibility of parents to inherit the same for them.
This it is very necessary that the parents should also be well versed with Indian culture and
traditions. There's no harm in taking good things from western world but this does not mean that
we should completely adopt it and pretend to be western and misrepresent our own identity. It is
understandable that India is growing in every field and there is necessity of knowing all the cultures
and their traditions. To some extent it is fine, but we should not pretend that we dislike the Indian
values and like only the western culture.
Positive Impact of mass media on culture:

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National Integration: Films and television promotes national integration to a great extent. It
brings people from different caste, religion, culture together. With globalization and increase in
number of channels there is one global identity over and above the regional identity reinforcing
the value of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbkam’.
Increase in awareness: Mass media promotes social issues such as anti-dowry, safe sex (anti-
Aids), small family norm, employment guarantee schemes etc. This helps to create informed
society. Positive image of women: Status of women is an integral part of the culture of any society.
Mass media highlighting the achievements of women and portraying strong women characters
change the perspective towards women.
Increase in employment opportunities: Directly or indirectly the advertisements, channels and

production houses generate a huge scope for employment for creative and talented people.
Strengthening family ties: Evenings in India have now become family get to gather time with
media revolution and certain good programmes. Reinforcing traditional values of eating together
and living together has strengthened family ties.
Negative impact of mass media on culture:
Promoting popular culture: Media in a big way promotes the mass or popular culture. That sends
a message what is popular is good. It often results in complete neglect of authentic, indigenous,
classical or folk culture.
Crime and violence: Increasing amount of violence based programs and action oriented films
adversely affects the mind set of children and youngsters. In course of imitating their favourite
stars they end up being juvenile delinquent, or indulge in anti-social elements.
Stereotypical image of woman: Barring some good programmes, advertisement and daily soaps
portray women in a very bad taste. Women on screen, when used as sex symbol the mindset of the
people gets affected and treat women in the same way in real life as well.
Sensationalizing events: Due to cut throat competition amongst the news channels and
newspapers, they tend to sensationalize events to grab audience or readers attention and increase

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their viewership or readership. Paparazzi become the vital part of our culture affecting the privacy
of members of society.
Defining beauty and richness: Media has created an illusion of fantasy world amongst its
viewers. Fairness and slimness of girls are the only parameters of their beauty. Larger than life
houses and lifestyles create wrong perception of happiness in the minds of young generation who
tend to dream of such life.
UNIT – 2
RISE OF MASS MEDIA
To give a brief history on the beginnings of mass media some historians believe that medieval
European cathedral architecture functioned as [the first] mass medium of religious communication
by offering biblical stories and religious information to a largely illiterate population through the
use of painting, sculpture, and other visual arts”, but really mass media starts as an “industrial-era
phenomenon” with the Gutenburg printing press. It was the first form of mass media in 1450. The
printing press spread news faster than anything before it’s time and introduced printing of not only
newspapers but books as well. It was first put to use by inventor, Johaness Gutenburg, to produce
“thousands of indulgences for the church” and the following year a “42-line Bible, the first book
ever printed on a movable type printing press”. Next came the telegraph. It was created by Samuel
Morse and was the first means of electronic communication. It used a code, Morse Code, that
incorporated dots and dashes to spell out words in the late 19th century. It was the first means of
electronic communication. What followed was the telephone in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell,
that was surprisingly first used as a radio and not the telephone that we know it to be today. These
two inventions paved the way for mass communication and thus mass media. From these
inventions we can now communicate with one another virtually anywhere, anytime and anyplace
very quickly.
The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in 1890. It was the first technology that was
designed to reproduce sound recordings. In 1891, Thomas Edison with “the Edison Company
successfully demonstrated the Kinetoscope, which enabled one person at a time to view moving

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pictures”. Later in 1896, Edison showed his improved Vitascope projector and it was the first
commercially, successful, projector in the U.S.
Radio came next in the1920’s. “radio stations started broadcasting in the beginning of the 20th
century. This brought the new concept of listening to radio programming into more people’s homes
on affordable radios”. In return radio audiences grew rapidly and made a huge impact on people’s
lives.
By the late 1930s, radio was woven into the fabric of American life. Public events, from political
rallies to sporting events and vaudeville routines, were now enjoyed by millions in private. And,
increasingly, Americans got their news from radio, especially news of the expanding war in
Europe. The immediacy and drama of the war news tied people more intimately to unfolding
events; it also, apparently, put some on edge. When Orson Welles broadcast his “War of the
Worlds” on Halloween, 1938, he had no inkling that the mock terror of the play would resonate
with a real terror of invasion among some listeners, prompting them to clog highways as they
sought to flee the Martians.
The television was invented in the 1930’s, but it did not become a success until about two decades
later. Although experimentation with television broadcasting began in the late 1920s, technical
difficulties, corporate competition, and World War II postponed its introduction to the public until
1946. Television constituted a revolutionary change from radio, but its introduction was not as
chaotic as that of radio, for an institutional framework already existed. The television boom
occurred between 1949, when 940,000 households had a set, and 1953, when the number soared
to 20 million.
TV integrated “with the explosive rise of a consumer culture after the war, pent-up demand fueled
by the privations of the depression and the war, coupled with prosperity, was exploited by
advertisers who turned to television to sell their products. In the early 1950s, many corporations
produced and sponsored entire shows, and ads were at least one minute in length”.
There are many inventions that contributed to the success of mass media technologies and paved
the way for the technology we use today. According to Daniel Mallia, 2013, the development of
the Internet can be traced back to 1958, when, in the shadow of the USSR's launch of the Sputnik

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satellite, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was established to research and develop
new technology for the United States military”. Mallia stated, “During the 1960s, computers
became increasingly more standard and smaller, the first online networks were established and the
ARPA network program began in 1966. Throughout the period there was great theorizing and
excitement over the problems, components, and potential military and academic applications of
computer networking”. In October of 1969, “the first ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects
Agency Network) host-to-host (meaning independent network-to-independent network)
connection was established between the University of California at Los Angeles and the Stanford
Research Institute”. This first packet sharing connection “between two networks became the
cornerstone for what came to be known in the early ‘70s as the Internet”. Shortly after the
“connection began to be used for email and in 1976, the first commercial email service, Comet,
was established”.
According to Mallia many of us confuse the “World Wide Web, a network of Internet websites,
with the Internet, a network of computer networks, but the World Wide Web would not come
online until much later, in 1993”. From these inventions stemmed Social Media, which are
“Internet sites where people interact freely, sharing and discussing information about each other
and their lives, using a multimedia mix of personal words, pictures, videos and audio”. “At these
Web sites, individuals and groups create and exchange content and engage in person-to-person
conversations”. Social media appears in many forms “including blogs and microblogs, forums and
message boards, social networks, wikis, virtual worlds, social bookmarking, tagging and news,
writing communities, digital storytelling and scrapbooking, and data, content, image and video
sharing, podcast portals, and collective intelligence”.
According to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013, “no communication technology is

inherently a mass medium but rather becomes one through usage”. An example would be that the
“radio was invented at the end of the 19th century primarily for use as a two-way communication
system to serve industrial shipping and naval operations’. “In the 1920s, however, corporate
decisions were made by several major electronics manufacturers to mass-produce inexpensive
radio receivers for retail sale and to operate radio stations as incentives for consumers to buy
them”. This shows how radio broadcasting, a mass medium, was implemented, and it swiftly “grew
into the primary use of that medium”.

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Television, on the other hand, developed in the complete opposite way. At first, it was “introduced
to the general public as a mass medium in the late 1940s”. Then, decades later, “the development
of supplementary appliances, such as the videocassette recorder (VCR) and the home video
camera, allowed for its use as an interpersonal medium”. Now, the telephone is an example of a
“medium of interpersonal communication that remains, primarily, just that”; although, as stated
earlier, it was not used as an interpersonal communication device as it is today but instead used
like a radio. “It is only occasionally used as a mass medium, as when a telemarketer uses computers
to automatically dial thousands of telephone numbers for the purpose of playing recorded
messages; similarly, letter writing has historically been an interpersonal medium, but the direct
mailing of letters of solicitation, sometimes numbering in the millions, by post or by e-mail,
constitutes the use of the letter as a mass medium”.
MASS CULTURE
It is a common culture experienced by large number of people. The culture that is widely
disseminated through the mass media. Also, it is the set of ideas and values that develop or arise
from a common exposure to the same cultural activities, media, news sources, music and art. It is
transmitted or otherwise distributed to individuals instead of arising from their day-to-day
interactions with each other. Thus, mass culture generally lacks the unique content of local
communities and regional cultures.
Mass culture conveys the idea that such culture emerges spontaneously from the masses
themselves, like popular art did before the 20th century. It promotes the role of individuals as
consumers.
With the rise of publishing and broadcasting in the 19th and 20th centuries, the scope of mass culture
expanded dramatically. Mass culture is made available to the masses either with the help of mass
media like broadcast, print, and internet or by word of mouth. The most important technology
contributing to the development of mass culture in the 1920s was radio.
Mass Culture emerged due to the development of print and broadcast which were strong enough
to alter perception, convince people to follow ideas on a large scale. The primary goal of mass
culture is to entertain and to distract the minds of the audience.

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Level of economic development of modern societies has made possible liberation of a free time
with which it is necessary to occupy with something, and also has raised a standard of living.
People have appeared capable to pay for getting them entertained.
The mass culture constantly is exposed to criticism both from researchers, and from the most
exacting public. The criticism is caused by • poor quality of production of "the cultural industry •
frequently playing the most primitive requirements • the instincts, not aspiring to spiritual
development of consumers.
Besides all the negative sides of Mass Culture, it should not be coined as negative key, as it plays
an important role in structural changes in any society and is responsible for particular functions in
the society. Mass culture theorists tend to romanticize the past in which folk and elite cultures
solidly maintain the social and moral order of communities. The audiences of the mass cultures
are often portrayed as passive, foolish, lack of tastes.
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
Cultures are created through communication. Communication is the means of human interaction
through which cultural characteristics— whether customs, roles, rules, rituals, laws, or other
patterns—are created and shared. Without communication and communication media, it would be
impossible to preserve and pass along cultural characteristics from one place and time to another.
One can say, therefore, that culture is created, shaped, transmitted, and learned through
communication. The reverse is also the case; that is, communication practices are largely created,
shaped, and transmitted by culture.
According to classical Marxist’s approach, mass media are the ‘means of production’ which are
controlled and used by the ruling class. “The class which has the means of material production at
its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby,
generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.”
Frankfurt School recognized the industrialization of mass-produced culture through ‘cultural

industries’ (mass media) and declared them as the most significant agents of socialization. Antonio
Gramsci theorized that a society is composed of diverse social groups wherein ‘hegemony’ or

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‘dominance’ of a social group over others is achieved through the use of social institutions,
particularly mass media. • Here, ‘hegemony’ represents the dominance of a social group by
projecting the ideas of a particular group in a way that they appear as ‘common sense’ and natural
for the subordinate groups.
IMPERIALISM
A policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force
(Oxford Dictionaries). Colonialism refers to the policy and practice of a power in extending control
over weaker peoples or areas. State policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and
dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control
of other areas. Because it always involves the use of power, whether military force or some subtler
form, imperialism has often been considered morally reprehensible, and the term is frequently
employed in international propaganda to denounce and discredit an opponent’s foreign policy.
Generally, imperialism means a policy or practice by which a country increases its power by
gaining control over other areas of the world.
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
It is defined as the cultural aspects of imperialism. Here, it is referring to the creation and
maintenance of unequal relationships between civilizations favoring the more powerful
civilization. Therefore, it can be defined as the practice of promoting and imposing a culture.
Usually of politically powerful nations over less potent societies. The fact of the culture of a large
and powerful country, organization, etc. having a great influence on another less powerful country,
etc. The brand has become a symbol of globalization and, to some, one of the most vivid examples
of cultural imperialism.
Cultural imperialism refers most broadly to the exercise of domination in cultural relationships in
which the values, practices and meanings of a powerful foreign culture are imposed upon one or
more native cultures. In this sense, cultural imperialism is used to describe examples of an enforced
adoption of the cultural habits and customs of the West from ancient times down to the twentieth
century on minor countries.

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MEDIA & CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
Adherents of the media imperialism tradition held that a small group of Western countries not only
controlled the international media trade but used it to transmit their particular cultural and
economic values, particularly individualism and consumerism, to large numbers of developing
nations around the world.
Stuart Hall argues that the global mass culture is actually predominantly American culture. Hall
looks at the global cultural sphere as being “dominated by the visual and graphic arts . . . dominated
by television and by film, and by the image, imagery, and styles of mass advertising.”
Media imperialism can be seen as the over concentration of a ‘superior’ nation’s mass media over
the rest of the world. Initially the concept was based on ‘West to the rest’ but, is now seen as a
more complex theory. It is not just seen internationally but can also be seen as a small number of
companies producing the maximum of amount of media.
America successfully instilling the American culture is an example of cultural imperialism through
media imperialism. Hollywood has successfully marketed America to the rest of the world.
Bollywood makes approximately more than 1500 films every year. However, the Indian censor
board is facing a hard time with the increase of ‘western influence’. Bollywood as began to touch
more on the love scenes and explicit scenes. In the past, Bollywood was bound strongly to the
story lines of good and evil, boys meet girls, and family oriented.
Cultural imperialism is linked to capitalism. The culture of capitalism is hegemonic and has thus
transformed into a global cultural dynamic. Modernity is a shift from old to new. The cultural
practices and consumer habits of the powerful being adopted by the weak.
In India, there is a continuous process of inter-cultural osmosis, due to the fact cultures are truely
no longer static but permeable and changeable over a time, a truth which the marketers were quick
to comprehend and exercising.
From the beyond ten years American software formats are being converted into Indian indicates,
resulting in such packages as Good Morning India (from Good Morning America) on
Doordarshan1, Crime Stoppers on Doordarshan Metro and India‘s Most Wanted on Zee TV (both

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primarily based on Cops) (Bhandare and Joshi, 1997). Star Plus ‘Kaun Banega Crorepathi (an
Indian clone of ABC’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) always crowned the ratings every week of
its telecast (Aiyar and Chopra, 2000). Beside these we additionally have Indian Idol from
American Idol, and Big Boss from Big Brother and many others.
With the arrival of digital TV even the kids also have a list of programmes to pick out. They now
have cartoons from Japan, China, UK, US and many others of their very own regional languages
like Ninja Hathodi, Parman, Shinchein, Tom and Jerry and so on.
For teens, a separate set of channels is likewise there like MTV, V Channel, and Fashion TV and
so forth. Basically inside the globalized world there are extra picks, distinctive tastes and plenty
enlarged field for publicity is available where you can fit yourself wherever you want. Initially,
the primary attention of tv become to make Indians aware about the outside world but if we see
our television from 2008, there are once more programmes which can be completely primarily
based on Indian troubles and tradition like Balika Vadhu, and many others. But these are not meant
handiest for people living in India however for the humans living outdoor India, because even
though Indian keeps to receive a wide range of American TV serials, Hollywood movies and pop
song, television in India is inextricably tied to its local and national cultures. A majority of
programmes on television are reflective of the range of their audiences‘ interest and their cultural
values.
In a geographically and culturally numerous United States with 18 authentic languages and a large
number of dialects, television plays a vital role in reflecting the hobbies of its society. A majority
of Indians decide on their personal song, dance and artwork. They want to see themselves, their
lives, their issues and their studies reflected on the display. Despite all elegant communicate of
worldwide tradition, self-made mass communications appears to be preferred because it is valued
for its cultural identity. The world remains characterized by competing ethno-countrywide cultures
in place of a wider pan nationalism.‖ This simply mirrors the Indian scene because with the
coexistence of more than one languages, traditions and cultures Indian satisfaction themselves with
their ―Indianness.

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MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY
Media constitute the fourth pillar of democracy. The role of the media is vital in generating a
democratic culture that extends beyond the political system and becomes engrained in the public
consciousness over time. Media is supplying the political information that voters base their
decisions on. They identify problems in our society and serve as a medium for deliberation. They
also serve as watchdogs that we rely on for uncovering errors and wrongdoings by those who have
power. Media is vital in generating a democratic culture that extends beyond the political system
and becomes engrained in the public consciousness over time. The role of media in a democracy
is as crucial as that of the politicians and should never be underestimated.
Media has a very big role to play in a democracy and its stature is in no way less than that of
politicians. Hence it is rightly called the fourth Pillar of democracy i.e. Fourth Estate. It is through
media that people become aware of so many aspects of life of which they are normally ignorant.
Democracy is meaningless without a free, neutral and active media. Media is often referred to as
the fourth branch of government because of the power they wield and the oversight function they
exercise. The media’s key role in democratic governance has been recognized since the late 17th
century, and remains a fundamental principle of modern-day democratic theory and practice.
The role of the press as ‘watchdog’ is a traditional characterisation of the role of the news media
in particular. This watchdog role can take many forms depending on the nature of the medium
concerned, as well as on the state of democracy and development in a particular country.
Essentially, this role is to provide information – to be the ‘eyes and ears’ of the public in monitoring
what is happening in public life by reporting on daily events as they unfold.
Amartya Sen sees the media as a watchdog not just against corruption but also against disaster. He
said “There has never been a famine in a functioning multiparty democracy .A free press and the
practice of democracy contribute greatly to bringing out information that can have an enormous
impact on policies for famine prevention… a free press and an active political opposition constitute
the best early-warning system a country threatened by famine could have.”
The role of media as ‘detective’ is a critical adjunct to the role of the press as public watchdog;
however, it is dealt with separately here to emphasize the difference between reporting on public

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affairs, and journalistic investigations into wrongdoing in the administration of public affairs.
When journalists are well trained and have trusted sources of information, the press is able to
investigate wrongdoing by public officials. This includes perpetrating fraud or engaging in
corruption in order to divert and personally benefit from public funds or other public resources.
This ‘press as defective’ role is evidenced when the press is able to engage in fairly long-term,
detailed, in-depth investigative journalism – the kind that is able to report to the public on large-
scale systematic wrongdoing by public (or indeed private) officials, which may include nepotism,
corruption, fraud or other kinds of criminality. These exposés often rely on more than one
journalist and require the backup of the media publication or outlet (be it broadcasting or print) as
a whole to provide the necessary resources for the investigative exercise. In many countries, the
ability and willingness of the press to engage in investigative journalism is key to encouraging the
police and prosecuting authorities to act against corrupt public figures, even if this only occurs as
a result of the intolerable pressure that the resulting publicity puts on the police and prosecuting
authorities.
There is no doubt that media has done a commendable job from time to time in making people
aware about the harsh realities of life, in exposing corruption prevalent in our society, in increasing
the awareness level among the people and a lot more but I feel that still a lot remains to be done.
Media is becoming increasingly popular among people from all walks of life and it certainly has
the potential of influencing the thoughts of its readers/viewers to a large extent. Media should, no
doubt, be neutral in airing views but it should also strongly desist from airing such views which
can adversely affect the communal harmony and give rise to deep suspicion, tension and senseless
violence which leads to killing innocent people. The media should make the people aware of the
consequences of the various actions of the governments.
Linked to its general educational role, but more controversially, the press can also play the role of
democracy and good governance advocate. This role is controversial because it envisages the press
as both advocate and impartial reporter. In this role, the press comments on issues of the day and
advocates improved democratic practices and good governance. In this advocacy role, the press
sees itself firmly on the side of the ordinary citizen, whose life can be improved or worsened
depending on how public authority is exercised. This advocacy role is also closely linked to the
watchdog role of the press; however, it goes further. The press as advocate will report not only on

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what is happening but on what should be happening. The press in many developing countries is
almost forced to playing this role because improving basic human living conditions cannot happen
without democratic practices and good governance.
Media act as a catalyst for democracy and development, helping to make public participation
meaningful .If media is honest and committed in its job, democracy is bound to function more
efficiently and the loopholes present in any democratic system can certainly be plugged to the
fullest satisfaction of the people. On the contrary, if media is biased, corrupt and favours only a
particular party or few individuals, it can prove to be very dangerous for the smooth functioning
of democracy. No one can become perfect and one can only strive to become so. The same holds
true for our media also. Certainly there is still a lot of scope for improvement by which the media
can rise upon the aspirations of the people for which it is primarily meant.
MEDIA AND PUBLIC OPINION
Media plays a vital role in a democratic county like India where public opinion has a major aspect.
Media is considered to be the fourth pillar of the society, the other three being, legislative,
executive and the judiciary system. It is even said to be a mirror and moduler of public opinion. In
other words, we may say that the public replicates or follows as well as accumulates pinions and
decisions through the media and the information displayed by it. People not only obtain real
information about public matters from the news media, but also pick up how much prominence to
assign to a subject on the basis of the highlighting and priority given to it in the news.
Internet including e-mails and blogs, television, radio and newspapers play a significant role in the
formation of outlooks and opinions of the general public. News media highlights the personalities
(politicians, people involved in film industry and other celebrities) and issues and common man
believes and forms opinion about them according to the news. Today’s picture of media is entirely
different. Public can talk about the incidents happening not only in the country is entirely different.
Public can talk about the incidents happening not only in the country but also outside he
geographical boundaries only due to awareness created by media.
Media also lays a crucial role in enlightening and educating the people. It can aid public
involvement through advocating issues and transferring knowledge, skills and technologies to the

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people. Awareness about various rural development programmes, propagation of family planning
could be spread easily using the media. Media awaken people against many evils prevailed in the
society. Apart from this, it covers many students in a single platform through its educational
programmes. The impact of media can be seen on the youth also. Youth’s exposure to media has
increased evidently in the few years.
The usage of personalized forms of media, comprising text messages and social networking sites
has exponentially expanded. It is also contributing to greater awareness of political issues and
prospects for public activities. Today individuals not only get information about government from
news and sites but they also respond by posting their opinions on the news and discussions on
various forums or joining groups. They are at ease in forming their opinion about any incident as
they learn about them in detail through the media.
We can very well see the positive effect of media on public opinion as media played a significant
role in pacing up the movement led by Ana Hazare. Round the clock coverage and upholding the
pitch, media ensured that the protests occur throughout the country and there is a mass rage and
frenzy. TV and newspapers were noticeably the driving force behind the anti-corruption
movement. The Indian media voluntarily became a part, a sort of participant in the drive for Jan
Lokpal bill. It is true that channels have given extreme coverage to Anna Hazare but that is what
happens in case of all major movements.
But, it is important for media to report in a fair and unbiased manner. They should apprehend the
consequential importance of events happening around and report issues in an impartial and
dispassionate manner. It should being all aspects of incidents before the public. Ignoring this point
of conduct will lead to serve damage to democracy as hiding any part of the story results in creation
of wrong and prejudicial public opinion. For instance, some channels start showing such scenes
and images, which are of no importance and have an adverse effect on the mind of viewers. Few
media groups have even started daring to produce news on their own. Media often use the phrase
from highly placed sources’ to give things a realistic shade.
It is thus important to understand that media plays a crucial role in generating public opinion. It
affects the mindsets of people and hence it should present the matter in an unbiased way. The
information through the media reaches door t odor and hence it is the social and moral

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responsibility of them to present a factual and authentic picture of any incident without thinking
much about money making or profit generation. With such a huge responsibility towards the
people, media should be more sensible and alert instead of a casual approach towards an event
because it is they on whom the general public is relying.
MEDIA AND PUBLIC SPHERE
A student of Frankfurt School of Social Research, Jurgen Habermas wrote ‘The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere’ (1962) to explore the status of public opinion in the practice
of representative government in Western Europe.
A Public Sphere began to emerge in the 18th Century through the growth of the coffee houses,
literary and other societies. Habermas argues that the later part of 19th and 20th century, the press
did not act as a Public Sphere because newspapers became profit oriented and business interests
turned the press into an agent of manipulation. He said ‘privileged private interests invaded the
public sphere’.
Habermas studied Philosophy and Sociology in the Frankfurt School under critical theorists Mark
Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno. But, his dissertation was not accepted by horkheimer.
However, Habermas finished his habituation in the University of Marburg and his habituation
work was published as a translated English work called ‘The Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere.’ This works is based on bourgeois public sphere. It gives a detailed account of the
development of bourgeois public sphere in the 18th century and the transformation of tit due to the
influence of capital driven mass media.
Among the institutions that contribute to the make-up of public sphere the media performs the
most crucial function. In the transactions of public sphere, the media play an important role by
intervening between the public and the state. Although, they are supposed to only chronicle the
debate. As early as the beginning of the newspaper in India, Hickey’s Gazette though claimed to
be chronicler of events, and advertiser, turned out to be critique of the Government.
Herbert Schiller, a theoretician of repute, says media in public sphere is a ‘Mind Manager’
implying it can have a bearing on the ideological mindset of people.

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The traditional Habermasian concept of the national public sphere created by the mass media of
newspapers and TV is now transformed into a multi layered sphere of online and Social
Networking Sites (SNS) which are increasingly important in engaging and mobilizing masses and
in shaping the discourse of rational thinking. But the open participation of the internet can turn
chaotic; there is a problem of inclusiveness; there is a censorship issue; the content can be partisan;
it can be fake. Moreover, extensive dialogue and threadbare discussion which is the core aspect of
public sphere, can be totally absent in the internet.
In the digital age, the debate on Habermas concept of public sphere has become not only
increasingly relevant but also problematic. The validity of the postmodern deliberations on
Habermas’ concept of public sphere cannot be ruled out, but the Habermas notion of critical
publicity is still valuable for the media today.
Computer – internet mediated concept of public sphere has taken over from the coffee houses of
the bourgeois public and it’s reaching the verge of extinction. In the present era, Habermas’
concept has become rather theoretical than physical. In fact, it can be noted that the notion of
public sphere is not static but subject to changes as the technological developments has brought in
viable transformations in the concept of public sphere.
Democracy and politics in the digital era have altogether changed the public sphere. No longer,
mainstream media is used by politicians for seeking votes or other information; the rule of the day
is Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other Social Networking Sites.
Recently, scholars tested how digital media are used for informational purposes to foster
democratic processes. There is anecdotal informational evidence that shows that Social
Networking Sites can have a prosocial effect. In the 2008 presidential election in USA, the Obama
Campaign created an online network site mybarackobama.com which successfully received
campaigners across the country.
Using Social Networking Sites for information purpose does have a positive impact on bringing
civic and political action. Demographic particulars, new media usage, use of Social Networking
Sites, discussion networks all have a bearing effect on political discussions and participation; this

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leads to considering using New Media as a tool for democracy. In short Social Networking Sites
also seem to provide adequate and relevant information to reinvestigate the democratic process.
The internet and its surrounding technologies hold the promise of reviving the democratic public
sphere. First, the data stored and retrieved do infuse political discussion time and again which
otherwise not easily available. At the same time, information access inequalities and new media
literacy compromise the cross section representativeness in the virtual public sphere. Second, the
Social Media based technology enables political discussion between people far and wide across
globe, but it also fragmentizes political discourse. Third, the global capitalism leads to internet
based technologies to adapt to current political culture, rather create a new one. However, the
Social Networking Sites, have created a new public space for political participation but how they
do create a new public sphere depends on the technology.
The use of new media technology for political participation has changed from Orkut to Facebook,
Generation X to Y, emergence of blogs, Google+. In India, political participation through new
media was initially seen only during elections. But, now it is successfully used as a tool to fight
corruption, political protests and such related issues.
A study conducted on the 2014 elections notes that the electoral success of BJP was associated
with Twitter in engaging voters. The main feature of these sites that help people to be informed in
that, they provide information faster than news channels. Many politicians have taken to Social
Media like fish to water. The best examples are PM Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal. Their
updates on Facebook, keep people informed about latest happenings in politics.
SOCIOLOGY OF MASS MEDIA
A medium is a means of communication such as print, radio, or television. The mass media are
defined as large-scale organizations which use one or more of these technologies to communicate
with large numbers of people (‘mass communications’). Dependent upon innovations in the
electronics and chemicals industries, the period between 1860 and 1930 was a formative moment
for the mass media. These years saw the development and introduction of still photography,
moving photography (cinema), cable telegraphy, wireless telegraphy, the phonograph, the
telephone, radio, and television. These new technologies formed part of the wider transformation

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in popular culture during this period and typified the new more intensive capitalization of the
leisure industries and their associated concern to address mass audiences.
As defined by C. Wright Mills in The Power Elite (1956), the mass media have two important
sociological characteristics: first, very few people can communicate to a great number; and,
second, the audience has no effective way of answering back. Mass communication is by definition
a one-way process. Media organizations are bureaucratic and (except in societies where all media
are state-controlled) corporate in nature. Media output is regulated by governments everywhere,
but the restrictions vary from very light advisory regulation (for example no cigarette advertising
or nudity on TV), to the most comprehensive forms of censorship in totalitarian societies.
Mass media dominate the mental life of modern societies, and therefore are of intense interest to
sociologists. From the earliest studies in the 1930s, the main concern was with the power implicit
in new media technologies, especially radio and television. Adolf Hitler's successful use of radio
for propaganda was an object lesson in the possible dangers. The concept of mass society added
force to the idea that the electronic media might create an Orwellian situation of mind control, with
passive masses dominated by a tiny élite of communicators.
Early studies by Harold Lasswell, Paul Lazarsfeld, and others seemed to show that media effects
were indeed direct and powerful–the so-called ‘hypodermic’ model of influence. But more
intensive research revealed that mass communications are mediated in complex ways, and that
their effects on the audience depend on factors such as class, social context, values, beliefs,
emotional state, and even the time of day.
Media research has expanded enormously since the 1960s, with most attention going to television
as the most pervasive medium. Four distinct areas of research can be distinguished. First, media
content studies, concerned with the cultural quality of media output, or with specific biases and
effects such as stereotyping or the promotion of anti-social behaviour and violence, especially on
children's television. Second, patterns of ownership and control, the integration of more and more
media into a few large corporations, cross-media ownership, and the increasing commercialization
of programming. Third, ideological influences of the media in promoting a total pattern of life and
thought. Fourth, the impact of electronic media on democratic politics via agenda-setting, the

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distortion and reduction of news, deflecting public attention from social problems, and the use of
television advertising in political campaigns.
Some critics have suggested an even more fundamental influence of television. Since the first
modern newspapers were published in the early seventeenth century, mass media have been linked
to the spread of literacy and education. Neil Postman is among those who have argued that the
electronic and visual media have reversed the trend towards greater literacy and understanding,
and are in the process of destroying the foundations of traditional education.
The national organization of the press and broadcasting (radio and television) has been a distinctive
feature of these mass media throughout this century. However, a number of writers have argued
that this organization of the mass media has increasingly been challenged, especially since the
1960s. Most clearly in relation to television broadcasting–the pre-eminent medium of the post-war
years in Europe, America, and a good deal of Asia–it is argued that we live in a transitional period.
In Britain, this is characterized as a movement from an era dominated by a conception of public-
service broadcasting based upon channel scarcity, a national service, and a particular set of
communication technologies, to a new age of global media corporations, new technologies, and
more segmented (as opposed to mass) audiences. Government policy in Britain has been central
to this process. A neo-liberal concern to open up media markets to greater competition has
challenged public-service notions of broadcasting as dealing in social goods. This has been
accompanied by a shift away from seeing the audience of radio and TV as citizens to seeing them
as consumers being offered choice. Opening up media markets has primarily offered new
opportunities to emerging global media organizations such as Time Warner, Sony, and News
Corporation. These corporations have been concerned to detach audio-visual markets from the
space of national cultures. New generic channels (dedicated to sport or news or movies) have
spearheaded the new service, carried along new delivery systems (satellite, cable and telephone
lines), funded by new forms of payment (subscription or pay-per-view).
Underpinning these developments has been not only the tighter integration of the media sector, but
also the convergence of entertainment and information businesses with the telecommunications
industry. Driving this process of convergence has been a concern to reap the rewards of media
synergy. It has been argued that there are four dimensions to this process. The first concerns

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‘synergies of software’. This refers to the simultaneous presentation and promotion of a performer
or author across a range of media, entertainment products, and leisure goods. In practice this means
linking together in a highly systematic way discrete forms such as audio recordings, still images
in books or magazines, T-shirts, advertising, film, TV broadcasts, home video, and computer
games. The second form of synergy refers to the integration of software and hardware. The
electrical goods manufacturer Sony's decision to buy CBS Records and its listing and back
catalogue of artists represents one example of this phenomenon. The third form of synergy
concerns the convergence of previously distinct hardware components and is the result of new
micro-processing systems and digital technology. Popularly known as ‘multi-media’, this enables
still and moving photos, sound, and text to share the same (digital) format. Finally, new media
synergy is possible through new technologies of distribution. The key development here is the
fibre optic cable, which can deliver media products and services such as movies or banking along
its length. In doing so it lays the basis for the so-called information super-highway.
Discussions concerning the social and cultural implications of this reconfiguring media landscape
have focused around the issues of democracy, access, and the creation of new public spheres.
Positively, developments such as pay-per-view and subscription are seen to introduce an element
of consumer responsiveness into programming, whilst the more developed forms of interactivity
associated with video, digitalization, and the Internet allow consumers to organize their own way
through particular media experiences. The Internet is also seen to offer positive possibilities for
groups previously marginal to the mass media to organize themselves and establish a space of
communication and identity.
In a more negative vein, however, critics have pointed to the increasing gap between the so-called
‘information rich’ and the so-called ‘information poor’ in the new media universe. Access to the
new technologies looms large in this argument, and with it questions of social marginalization,
where groups are denied opportunities to express themselves via these new means of
representation. What is striking here is the enormous concentration of ownership across media
production, reproduction, and distribution. In this sense, although the new media may represent
greater social and cultural diversity in their range of products, this is not reflected in the social
make-up of the media corporations themselves.

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MEDIA MONOPOLY
The production of media content and its distribution are becoming increasingly combined and,
again, concentrated in the hands of a few. Even though India might appear as an ‘overly legislated’
country in many ways, media laws relating to concentration of ownership are fragmented,
incoherent and largely ineffective – also because TV ratings remain intransparent and owned by
the industry. As a result, regardless of India’s size, a small number of companies and
conglomerates dominate the country’s media landscape.
Media Ownership Monitor (MOM), a research project carried out in India by Reporters Without
Borders (RSF) and the Delhi-based digital media company DataLEADS provides a vivid and
interactive picture of the Indian media landscape by disclosing who owns and ultimately controls
mass media.
India is one of the biggest media markets in the world. However, the concentration of ownership
of media shows that a handful of people own and control Indian media. Our research captures
ownership structures and reflects on media pluralism. This is an important initiative to strengthen
media ownership transparency which is fundamental to media’s credibility and its relationship
with audiences,” said Syed Nazakat, founder and CEO of DataLEADS.
India’s size also relates to its media landscape. According to most recent data as of 31st March,
2018, there were over 118,239 publications registered with the Registrar of Newspapers, which
include over 36,000 weekly magazines alone. There are over 550 FM radio stations in the country
and, according to the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, over 880 satellite TV channels,
including over 380 which claim to be television channels broadcasting “news and current affairs”.
The number of news websites operating in India is simply unfathomable.
However, this vast amount of media outlets and the country’s cultural and ethnic richness does not
automatically translate into a variety in supply. The Media Ownership Monitor indicates rather the
opposite – a significant trend towards concentration and, ultimately, control of content and public
opinion.

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Huge markets controlled by a few
The Media Ownership Monitor analysed 58 leading media outlets with the largest audience shares
in India. The research revealed that the country’s print media market is highly concentrated. Four
outlets – Dainik Jagran, Hindustan, Amar Ujala and Dainik Bhaskar – capture three out of four
readers (76.45% of readership share) within the national Hindi language market.
Similarly, regional language media markets are highly concentrated. Our findings show that, in
each of those market segments, the respective top two newspapers concentrate more than half of
readership shares or more. For example, out of five Tamil newspapers, the top two titles combine
a readership share of two thirds. Similarly, the newspapers Eanadu and Sakshi manage to reach
71.13% of audiences in the Telugu language market. This trend has been observed and validated
across all regional markets including Bengali, Oriya, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Urdu, Marathi
and Assamese.
Most of the leading media companies are owned by large conglomerates that are still controlled
by the founding families and that invest in a vast array of industries other than media.
In the radio sector, India’s state-controlled broadcaster All India Radio (AIR) has a nationwide
monopoly on radio news. AIR is the largest radio network in the world covering a wide spectrum
of languages and social-economic groups. In India, private broadcasters who run FM radio stations
have the license to provide music and entertainment content, but are barred from producing news.
Audience data for India’s television market was not available as in India it is considered a corporate
or industry secret, rather than a public resource. The relevant entity – BARC (Broadcast Audience
Research Council) – declined to provide the data repeatedly. BARC publishes the weekly
impressions for top 5 Television broadcasters in news genre across 10 language markets (Hindi,
English, Marathi, Telugu, Bangla, Kannada, Oriya, Assamese, Malayalam, Tamil) on its website.
However, they reserve all rights on the data and communicated to the MOM team that the data
cannot be used in any form without their prior approval which the team failed to get.

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Regulatory flaws
The high level of concentration comes as a result of considerable gaps in the regulatory framework
to safeguard media pluralism and prevent media concentration. Neither specific means to measure
nor thresholds to limit ownership concentration in print, television and the online sector are in
place. The patches of regulation that exist do not seem to be properly implemented with the
exception of the radio market where, however, India’s state-controlled broadcaster has a
nationwide monopoly on radio news. Law in India does not regulate cross-media concentration
either.
Some of the existing laws were adopted over a hundred years ago and continue regulating some
aspects of media today, such as the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885, which laid the ground for a
government monopoly over the broadcast sector. As a result and regardless of seeming diversity
and plurality of supply, the Indian media landscape is comprised of highly concentrated market
segments.
In the absence of overarching regulation on media, self-regulatory bodies like BARC, the only
entity to measure television audience, caters exclusively to the interests of the industry that they
represent. Although other self-regulatory bodies, such as News Broadcasters Association (NBA)
and Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) set the rules and effectively regulate the television
market without a mandate to control market concentration can self-regulation be enough to
maintain a healthy media market?
Patches of transparency and secrecy
The MOM team collected the data for their research from publicly available sources such as IRS
(Indian Readership Survey, 2017). The data and information on ownership structures and
shareholders of media companies and related individual owners was obtained from the website of
the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA). In addition, the research team sent out information
requests to all investigated media companies, by registered mail and email, but none except for
The Print have responded so far. The research is also based on a number of Right to Information
requests (RTI) submitted to different State’s governments to collect data about public funds and
advertising allocated to media.

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There is some good news – MOM was able to find owners of almost all media companies through
an openly available database provided by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The only company
that remains unknown in terms of ownership and shareholding is Scroll Media Incorporation,
registered in the US State of Delaware. Consequently, the shareholding structure of the company
is not available.
Although transparency seems mostly achievable with some effort, it’s still important to note that
ownership structures of almost all major media houses are characterised by highly complicated
cross-shareholdings designed to either hide beneficial owners or to circumvent certain laws – or
both. For example, there are restrictions on the licences of distribution networks in place by the
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, wherein a cap of 20 per cent has been imposed on a
broadcaster’s or cable network company’s stake in a DTH (direct to home) business and vice versa.
However, these regulations are not effectively implemented, as the example of the Essel group
illustrates. As the owner of Zee Media, it controls both broadcast media and distribution networks
such as Dish TV and Siti cable through a web of companies. Dish TV is also merging with
Videocon D2H, another distribution network and the case is currently pending at Delhi High Court.
As opposed to ownership, market and audience data in the Television sector remain strictly
hidden, as the industry association BARC refuses to disclose it publicly. This comes not only as a
violation of best practice internationally, but also inhibits public accountability, research and
meaningful regulation, particularly concentration control.
Political leverage
Regardless of seeming diversity and plurality, the Indian market is not only comprised of highly
concentrated media markets. Also, some of the leading outlets are controlled by individuals with
political ties. As the MOM study shows, the majority of the media companies has business and
political affiliations and the more into regional level one dives, the more straightforward and
visible the links are. Odisha TV, for example, in the state of Odisha is owned by the Panda Family,
Baijayant Jay Panda is the National Vice President and Spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP). He has been a four-time Member of Parliament of India from the state of Odisha. However,
he has lost in the recent 2019 elections.

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In the state of Assam, Riniki Bhuyan Sarma owns the Television station NewsLive. She is the
wife of Himanta Biswa Sarma, a powerful cabinet minister in the BJP government in Assam. These
are just a few examples of convergence of politics and media. The resulting interdependence
between media, business and politics presents a high risk to media freedom and pluralism in India.
One means of political leverage can be exerted by rewarding or punishing media outlets through
the allocation or non-allocation of advertising by the government, likethis happened recently in
Jammu-and-Kashmir. This plays out at a national level, but even more critically at the State and
local levels where many media outlets depend on it to survive and transparency is not guaranteed.
No figures were available for government advertising on Television and the RTIs filed have
yielded no results. In addition to public spending on advertising, also the political parties invest
heavily and one of, if not the largest advertiser in the country is the ruling party BJP.
Violence against journalists
India’s ranking fell from 138 to 140 out of 180 countries in RSF's 2019 World Press Freedom
Index. With at least six journalists killed in connection with their work, India was among the
deadliest countries in the world for journalists in 2018. Many others were the targets of murder
attempts, physical attacks, and threats. Attacks against journalists by supporters of Prime Minister
Narendra Modi increased in the run-up to general elections in the spring of 2019. Hate campaigns
against journalists, including incitement to murder, are common on social networks and are fed by
troll armies linked to the nationalist right.
CULTURAL IMERIALISM
Cultural hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through ideological or cultural means.
It is usually achieved through social institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence
the values, norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of society.
Cultural hegemony functions by framing the worldview of the ruling class, and the social and
economic structures that embody it, as just, legitimate, and designed for the benefit of all, even
though these structures may only benefit the ruling class. This kind of power is distinct from rule
by force, as in a military dictatorship, because it allows the ruling class to exercise authority using
the "peaceful" means of ideology and culture.

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Cultural Hegemony According to Antonio Gramsci
The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci developed the concept of cultural hegemony out of Karl
Marx’s theory that the dominant ideology of society reflects the beliefs and interests of the ruling
class. Gramsci argued that consent to the rule of the dominant group is achieved by the spread of
ideologies—beliefs, assumptions, and values—through social institutions such as schools,
churches, courts, and the media, among others. These institutions do the work of socializing
people into the norms, values, and beliefs of the dominant social group. As such, the group that
controls these institutions controls the rest of society.
Cultural hegemony is most strongly manifested when those ruled by the dominant group come to
believe that the economic and social conditions of their society are natural and inevitable, rather
than created by people with a vested interest in particular social, economic, and political orders.
Gramsci developed the concept of cultural hegemony in an effort to explain why the worker-led
revolution that Marx predicted in the previous century had not come to pass. Central to
Marx’s theory of capitalism was the belief that the destruction of this economic system was built
into the system itself since capitalism is premised on the exploitation of the working class by the
ruling class. Marx reasoned that workers could only take so much economic exploitation before
they would rise up and overthrow the ruling class. However, this revolution did not happen on a
mass scale.
The Cultural Power of Ideology
Gramsci realized that there was more to the dominance of capitalism than the class structure and
its exploitation of workers. Marx had recognized the important role that ideology played in
reproducing the economic system and the social structure that supported it, but Gramsci believed
that Marx had not given enough credit to the power of ideology. In his essay “The Intellectuals,”
written between 1929 and 1935, Gramsci described the power of ideology to reproduce the social
structure through institutions such as religion and education. He argued that society's intellectuals,
often viewed as detached observers of social life, are actually embedded in a privileged social class
and enjoy great prestige. As such, they function as the “deputies” of the ruling class, teaching and
encouraging people to follow the norms and rules established by the ruling class.

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Gramsci elaborated on the role the education system plays in the process of achieving rule by
consent, or cultural hegemony, in his essay “On Education.”
The Political Power of Common Sense
In “The Study of Philosophy,” Gramsci discussed the role of “common sense”—dominant ideas
about society and about our place in it—in producing cultural hegemony. For example, the idea of
“pulling oneself up by the bootstraps,” the idea that one can succeed economically if one just tries
hard enough, is a form of "common sense" that has flourished under capitalism, and that serves to
justify the system. In other words, if one believes that all it takes to succeed is hard work and
dedication, then it follows that the system of capitalism and the social structure that is organized
around it is just and valid. It also follows that those who have succeeded economically have earned
their wealth in a just and fair manner and that those who struggle economically, in turn,
deserve their impoverished state. This form of "common sense" fosters the belief that success and
social mobility are strictly the responsibility of the individual, and in doing so obscures the real
class, racial, and gender inequalities that are built into the capitalist system.
In sum, cultural hegemony, or our tacit agreement with the way that things are, is a result of
socialization, our experiences with social institutions, and our exposure to cultural narratives and
imagery, all of which reflect the beliefs and values of the ruling class.

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TECHNOLOGICAL DETERMINISM
Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that aims to provide a causative link between
technology and a society’s nature. It tries to explain as to whom or what could have a controlling
power in human affairs. The theory questions the degree to which human thought or action is
influenced by technological factors.
The term ‘technological determinism’ was coined by Thorstein Veblen and this theory revolves
around the proposition that technology in any given society defines its nature. Technology is
viewed as the driving force of culture in a society and it determines its course of history.
Karl Marx believed that technological progress lead to newer ways of production in a society and
this ultimately influenced the cultural, political and economic aspects of a society, thereby
inevitably changing society itself. He explained this statement with the example of how a feudal
society that used a hand mill slowly changed into an industrial capitalist society with the
introduction of the steam mill.
WINNER’S HYPOTHESES
Langdon Winner provided two hypotheses for this theory:
 The technology of a given society is a fundamental influencer of the various ways in which
a society exists
 Changes in technology are the primary and most important source that leads to change in
the society
An offshoot of the above hypotheses which is not as extreme is the belief that technology
influences the various choices that we make and therefore a changed society can be traced back to
changed technologies.
Technological determinism manifests itself at various levels initially it starts with the introduction
of newer technologies introduces various changes and at times these changes can also lead to a
loss of existing knowledge as well. For example, the introduction of newer agricultural tools and

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methods has seen the gradual loss of knowledge of traditional means of farming. Therefore
technology is also influencing the level of knowledge in a society.
Examples of Technological determinism
History shows us numerous examples to explain why technology is considered to be determining

the society that we live in. The invention of the gun changed how disputes were sorted out and
changed the face of combat. A gun required minimum effort and skill to be used successfully and
could be used from a safe distance. This when compared to how earlier wars were fought with
swords and archery lead to a radical change in the weapons used in war. Today with the discovery
of nuclear energy, future wars will be fought with nuclear arsenal. Each new discovery causes a
transition to a different society. The discovery of steam power let to the development of the
industrial society and the introduction of computers has led to the dawn of the information age.
Technological Drift
Winner believed that changes in technology sometimes had unintended or unexpected results and
effects as well. Winner called this phenomenon as ‘technological drift’ where people start drifting
more and more among a sea of unpredictable and uncertain consequences. According to Winner,
technology is not the slave of the human being but rather humans are slaves to technology as they
are forced to adapt to the technological environment that surrounds them.
Forms of Technological Determinism
An alternative weaker view of technological determinism says that technology is serving a

mediating function because despite it leading to changes in culture, it is actually controlled by
human beings. When control of technology slowly reduces from being in the hands of few human
beings, it passes completely into the control of technology itself. This view of humans having no
control is referred to as ‘autonomous technological determinism.’
Technological Determinism and Media
New media are not only an addition to existing media, they are also new technologies and therefore
do have a deterministic factor as well. Marshall McLuhan made a famous statement that “the

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medium is the message.” This means that the medium used to communicate influences the mind
of the receiver. The introduction of news print, television and the internet have all shown how
technological advances have an impact on the society in which we live in.
Criticism of Technological Determinism
A critique of technological determinism is that technology never forces itself on members of the
society. Man creates technology and chooses to use them. He invents television and chooses to
view it. There is no imposition on the part of the technology to be used rather technology requires
people to participate or involve themselves at some point or another to use a car or a microwave.
The choice of using technology and experiencing its effects therefore lies in the hand of a human
being.

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UNIT – IV
Characteristics of New Media
The World lives in an age of rapid technological changes. Current changes experienced by
information technology that happened in the world from the first invention of the fast steam printer
which made the distribution of newspapers, magazine and books to the general public and made it
more easier. Then the media witnessed a new invitation like radio and television. The change that
we are witnessing today depends on use of computers in the production, storage and distribution
of information and entertainment, this feature which provide sources of information and
entertainment to the public easily and at low prices is in fact a common feature of old and new
media, the difference is that the new media able to add a new feature not offered by the old media
That is interaction.
New Media are Digital, interactive, hypertextual, globally networked, virtual and sometimes based
on simulation.
This post provides further information and elaboration on these six key features of New Media.
Digital
With the growth of digital technology in the 1990s, the vast majority of information is now
converted, stored and transmitted as binary code (a series of 1s and 0s.). Qualitative information
has today become ‘digitalised’.
Digitalisation what allows so much information to be stored in compact hard disks or micro
memory cards and it is also what allows for the near instantaneous transmission of information via
cable and satellite.
Digitalisation has also resulted in ‘technological convergence’, or the convergence of different

forms of information (text, audio and visual) into one single ‘system’ – most web sites today offer
a fusion of text and audio-visual information, and our mobile devices allow us to perform a variety
of functions – not only reading text and watching/ listening to videos, but also searching for
information, sending messages, shopping and using GPS functions.

P a g e | 51
Analogue is the opposite of digital. It is stored in physical form and examples include print
newspapers, records, and old films and T.V. programmes stored on tape.
Interactivity
‘Old media’ tended to be very much a ‘one way’ affair, with audiences on the receiving end of
broadcasts, for the most part able to do little else that just passively watch media content.
New Media however is much more of a two way affair and it allows consumers and users to get
more involved. It is much more of a two way form of communication than old media.
Increased interactivity can be seen in simple acts such as liking a Facebook post or commenting
on news piece or blog. However some users get much more involved and create their own blogs
and videos and actively upload their own content as ‘prosumers’.
New Media seem to have fostered a more participatory culture, with more people involved and the
roles between consumer and producer of media content becoming ever more blurred!
Hypertextual
Hypertext, or ‘links’ are a common feature of new media, which allows users more freedom of
choice over how they navigate the different sources of information available to them.
In more technical terms, links in web sites offer non-sequential connections between all kinds of
data facilitated by the computer.
Optimists tend to see this feature as allowing for more individualised lifestyle choices, giving users
the chance to act more independently, and to make the most of the opportunities new media
markets make available to them.
Global Networks
Digital Media has also facilitated cultural globalisation – we now interact much more globally and
via virtual networks of people rather than locally.

P a g e | 52
These networks allow for ‘collective intelligence’ to increase – they allow us to pool our resources
much more easily and to draw on a wider range of talents and sources of information (depending
on our needs) than ever before.
NB one question to ask about networks is what the main hubs are, through which information
flows. This has implications for power.
Virtual Worlds
New Media presents to us a very different reality from face to face to ‘lived reality’ – for most of
us this means a very fast paced flow of information with numerous products and people screaming
for our attention.
However, this situation has only existed since the mid 2000s, and it must be remembered that New
Media reality is virtual reality.
This is especially true when it comes to social media sites which give users the opportunity to
present themselves in any way they see fit, and while most users don’t go full Cat Fish, most people
choose to present only one aspect of themselves.
Simulation
Simulation goes a step beyond the ‘virtual’ nature of New Media as usual. Simulation is most
obviously experienced computer games which provide an immersive experience for users into a
“virtual life” that is simulated through digital technology.
These virtual worlds are synthetic creations that ultimately rely on algorithms which set the
parameters through which events in the gaming environment unfold.
Examples today include not only online RPG games, but also driving and flight simulations.

P a g e | 53
EFFECTS AND IMPLICATIONS OF NEW MEDIA

New media have been the most popular trend for the last few years. It is now considered as part of
everyone's life and that is used daily. So what is new media? The definition of new media changes
daily and will continue on changing. New media is technology, internet, and any form of
communication such as social media and websites. Do you think that social media have gotten
disadvantages? Well everything in our lives have advantages and disadvantages that will affect
our way of living.
The first advantage is that social media offers opportunities for professional online networking,
and it is a valuable business tool. LinkedIn for instance, it is a tool that allows users to put an online
resume and their CVs on their profile so that they stay connected with business people and get job
offers by only looking through their profile. Moreover, instead of going through your business
cards and remembering each person, you can easily look up their names and check their profile.
Furthermore, new media is accessible anytime and anywhere. It is considered as a news tool, you
can check the news as soon as it happens and not have to wait for the morning newspaper every
day. Twitter, Facebook, and online news serve in publishing the news in the same minute or even
the same second. You can also spread news that happened around you and share it with friends
and other users, while in newspaper or TV you cannot do so.
Another advantage is that you can always stay connected with people all over the world. Old
friends, families who live far away, or colleagues. It has been easier for people to communicate
with others, sharing the moments, sending pictures and videos through the social networking. This
has made long distances between people, shorter.
On the other hand, new media is not always a reliable source to get news from, because everyone
can be posting wrong news just for fun and grabbing attention. There is no publisher to check
whether the information written is wrong or right unlike newspaper, TV, or radio there is always
an editor and publisher that insures that information published to the audience is right.
Although social media has connected us with people all over the world, but this has affected our
face to face communication. Now a days, people are preferring communicating through social

P a g e | 54
media rather than face to face and this have increased the online relationships. Wherever you go
now, you can realize how people are sitting together physically, but using their smart -phones
communicating with others, so eventually they are mentally not together. This will affect our lives
in a way or another, for instance, in business life you will not be able and not have the experience
to communicate with employers and consumers and this will obviously affect your job.
Moreover, it has hacked our lives and privacy. For example, now a days through the social media
you can know details about a person just by entering their account in any application. Seeing
pictures where he/she has went, what have they done, and etc. You can't anymore have privacy
like before and have your own life, you always feel like you to share it with others.
In conclusion, people are easily engaging with technology and you can rarely find people who do
not use any type of the new media. It is been a trend, a useful one, and will always be, however
people should always know that everything needs limits and so the new media.
ROLE OF NEW MEDIA IN DEMOCRATIZATION PROCESS
New media has provided space for audience to exercise freedom of expression, views and
opinions. Rapid technological development has created a unique phenomenon that is New Media.
Information is readily available at fingertip. Advancement in digital technology has enabled people
to upload almost anything, post, discuss, interact and comment.
When World Wide Web became popular in mid-1990’s, it enabled people to share information in
ways that were never possible. As an example, in US more than 60% adults use social media like
Facebook and Twitter. On these platforms, they not only share their general thoughts, but they do
share what they do share what they think about politicians, take part in various surveys and
discussions, and last but not least, influence and get influences by other’s thoughts. It shows that
most of the people using social media take interest in political events taking place around them.
The first event that changed the landscape of social democracy took place in 1994. The Zapatista
Army of National Liberation Army of National Liberation Army in Chiapas, Mexico used new
media for political activism, particularly politically motivated communication to its supporters in
Mexico and Worldwide.

P a g e | 55
In the year 2000, social movements in Serbia have mobilized a large number of people to question
the oppressive political regime that contributed to the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic. The
social network based movement was established by a group of university students in October 1998.
In the year 2008, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, to
protest the continuous violence by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia. All information
regarding the protest was transmitted and disseminated via Facebook.
Arab Spring has always been used to refer revolution led by everyday people through new media.
The implication is how the new media is used to encourage democracy and in an effective manner.
It is established that the internet can directly impact a democratic system.
The challenges of democratization through new media, the government should institute a new law
or bill that governs the dissemination of information so as to avoid misperception and malice.
This would mean that new media organization i.e. online news agency, information sites, etc.
should uphold conviction and accountability in ensuring the dissemination of information. The
definition of media literacy should also be extended to include social media understanding which
teaches the society not only to accept, but also to be capable of interpreting and evaluating
information from social media.
CITIZENSHIP THROUGH PARTICIPATION
The degree of political participation among the public is an important indicator of the quality of a
democracy. While fewer people in Western societies see the importance of participation that
involves memberships in and long-term commitments to political organizations, participation in
short-term and case-oriented activities is on the rise. Activities such as consumerism, online
political expression or urban gardening are increasingly recognized as forms of political. The
causes of these new participation patterns are still not fully understood; also, we do not know
whether the increasing engagement in new forms of political participation comes at the expense of
more established ways of being politically active. Hence, scholars increasingly replace the
‘evergreen question’: why are some people politically more active than others.

P a g e | 56
As suggested by previous research, differential media effects are explored by focusing on digital
media use for social interaction, creative expression, online news use and social media news use.
These types of digital media use are subsequently linked to four distinct understandings of
citizenship (i.e., dutiful, optional, individual, collective).
Identifying individual-level predictors of political participation is crucial for the understanding of

democratic processes. For a long time, explanations for political activity focused on citizens’
individual pre-dispositions, such as their socio-economic status and resources as well as specific
mobilization practices of political actors.
Digital media use as driver of participation Creating awareness of political topics, fostering
political talk and making people more knowledgeable, media use has been identified as an
important individual-level predictor of political participation. Investigating the effects of digital
media use on political behavior may seem natural at a time when citizens ubiquitously use Internet
technology in most parts of their life. However, digital media can be used for different purposes:
For instance, citizens increasingly access news via online channels but they also use the Internet
to communicate with peers via messaging apps on their smartphones or upload user-generated
content. Interestingly, it is not only the young who make use of those technologies; older
generations increasingly also adopt such online activities. Earlier research has already established
a rather strong relationship between Internet use or social media use and political behavior. But
while most studies applied a rather unidimensional understanding of Internet use, the present study
aims at extending this knowledge by focusing on differential digital media use and its effects.
Discriminate between using the Internet for social interaction, creative expression and accessing
news.
While social interaction refers to the use of social media platforms and messenger-apps for
interpersonal communication, using the Internet for creative expression describes the distribution
of ideas, text, images or videos publicly, in collaboration with or inspired by other users. Using
online sources for news is often seen as one of the strongest facilitators of political action since
information about politics and public affairs is often freely available, easily accessible and
contributes to the political expertise of citizens. Various studies find that online news is a
significant facilitator of democratic behavior. Also, scholars found positive effects of online news

P a g e | 57
use on political interest and political talk among young citizens, while the use of the Internet for
social interaction had a negative influence. Studies found that online creative expression, but not
social interaction, to be a driver of political participation. Specifically, social media news use was
found to be a positive predictor of certain types of political participation.
Although most types of digital media use are expected to be positively related to political
participation, their effects may vary in strength. The affordances of a digital media environment,
such as personalization, inadvertent exposure and targeted information, are all more pronounced
for social media use. Many studies find social media use to have more positive effects on political
behavior than online media use. The argument is that news use on social media ‘pushes’
information towards peoples’ news feed and that a personalized, targeted and narrow news diet
has a mobilizing effect. It also allows for inadvertent exposure to certain issues based on the user’s
social network and algorithmic decision. Hence, a possible explanation why social media news
use mobilizes participation more than online news use is that users are (inadvertently) exposed to
more personalized and targeted news on social media.
The approach of investigating the role of citizenship understanding at a time when digital media
use and political participation are increasingly related is in many ways but a means to an end. It
rather aims to contribute to an alternative understanding of underlying mobilization mechanisms
in digital media next to more frequently studied indicators like political knowledge, efficacy or
social capital. Although media effects may be rather limited, evidence is found for a transformation
of civic norms in a post-industrial and highly individualized society, which eventually affects
political participation. Hence, research should stay tuned to citizenship understanding as an
influencing factor of political participation. The finding that digital media use only affects older
citizens’ participation indirectly through citizenship understanding is a pioneer example of the
impact digitalization may have on the political sphere. It shows that we have to stay attentive to
both directions: how being socialized in a digital media environment shapes democratic
understandings and how certain political behaviors and attitudes that were learned much earlier
can be ‘updated’ by digitalization.

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Open Elective - Media Studies

Communication is often considered as an activity only. In actuality, it is a process. The process of

Communication is the modus operandi of social and commercial intercourse. It is communication,

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

NEED FOR COMMUNICATION

Man is a social being. He is a member of society. As a member of society he has to constantly

The factors responsible for growing importance of communication are as follows:

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Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

1. Newman and Summer: Communication is an exchange of ideas, facts, opinions, or

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

7. McFarland said “Communication may be broadly defined as the process of meaningful

1. It is a process of passing information and understanding from one person to another.

The following are the principles of communication:

CLARITY: This includes clarity of thought and clarity of expression.

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

(i) What is the objective of communication?

The following points about the choice of words deserve attention:

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

COMPLETENESS: In communication, completeness of facts is absolutely necessary.

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

A communications system is a collection of communications equipment that is integrated into a

Information and education.

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Information and education functions

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

a) Transmitting culture and heritage from generation to generation and

Development support communication

The communication process consists of several components: Sender, Message, Encoding,

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

c) Contextual noise: If communication takes place in inappropriate time or place, message is

INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA AND CULTURE

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Media and Culture

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Westernization of Indian Culture through Mass Media

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

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Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Increase in employment opportunities: Directly or indirectly the advertisements, channels and

Negative impact of mass media on culture:

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

RISE OF MASS MEDIA

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

According to Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 2013, “no communication technology is

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Frankfurt School recognized the industrialization of mass-produced culture through ‘cultural

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

MEDIA & CULTURAL IMPERIALISM

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University

Department of Media Studies School of Arts & Humanities REVA University