ASHFAQ AKBAR

Roll number: 2214511392

Course: MAMJC
Semester – 1
DMJ6107
Basics of Audio and Visual Communication
ASSIGNMENT SET 1
QUESTION 1
“Writing for the eye is different from writing for the ear”
Writing for the eye is a formal constructive process. In pure journalistic sense writing for the
eye means writing in the print media. Writing for the print media follows a loose set of
patterns. It generally follows an inverted pyramid style of writing. Writing for the ear means
writing for the audio-visual media podcasts etc. writing for the ear is more concise and does
not follow the inverted pyramid style of writing. Writing for print, or for the eye,
communicates with a reader in a visual-liner mode. This kind of writing triggers the reader's
logic and thought. When you write for listeners, you must use different methods to grab your
potential audience attention. There are different forms of writing within the category of
writing for listeners. They are:
a. Storytelling
b. Sermons
c. PowerPoint presentations
d. Podcast and radio talk
e. Poetry session
f. Radio copy and commercials
Introduction and conclusion are essential parts in writing for the ear. The psychology of
listeners focusses their attention on the beginning and the end of a spoken story. Listeners
hook themselves up to the middle only when the story conveyed to them touches their inner
self through commonality of experience. Emphasis on a particular sentence can be bought
about by repetitions. The rules of writing for the eye demand you to avoid any repetitions and
stay as straight to the point as possible. When we write for the year a special effort must be
put in phrasing the end as the end will determine the success of your show.

Here are some additional general differences in rules that you apply when writing for the ear
in comparison with writing for the eye:
1. Paying attention to the word size and sentence is essential when writing for the eye. They
have to be as short as possible. The best practice is using shorter sentences with a basic
structure and avoiding compound or complex sentences.
2. Present tense is preferable than the past tense. This rule applies in broadcast news writing
3. While writing for print should be enriched with the whole palette of vocabulary, it is not
the case with writing for the ear. The best practice for writing for listeners is using common
words only.
4. “Do not” and “I will” work best for print writing, while their contractions “Don’t” and
“I’ll” work best for the ear.
5. When writing for the eye, we put precise statistical data. A listener is different.
Approximation works while you are speaking to a listener.

6. Writing for the eye is an opportunity for you to unleash your creativity and leave a lot to
the readers imagination. Writing for the eye however has to be concise as a listener might get
lost in the sea of information thrown at him
Question 2:
Radio: Scope and limitations in India
Radio is defined as sound communication by radio waves, usually through the transmission
of music, news, and other types of programs from single broadcast stations to multitudes of
individual listeners equipped with radio receivers. Radio was found in the early 20th century
and is still one of the popular medium of communication. Radio was the main medium of
news during the second world war. In India it was the mainstay of news till late 80s.
Scope of Radio in India:
Radio as a mass medium: Radio broadcast information to a large population mass spread all
over the country. Being inexpensive and working mainly on radio waves it can help bring
information to the ear of the common folk and the rich alike
Radio as a reasonable medium of communication: Radio requires less capital. The cost of
running a radio is very cheap while compared to a TV. Similarly at the other end of the
spectrum a radio runs on battery and is mobile. This helps radio to be of great use to the
common mass
Radio as a medium of education: the Radio can be used as a medium to bring about literacy
to people in the far corners of the country. Ina country like India where poverty is still
rampant and socio-economic differences stark, the radio can be used by both govt and non
govt organisations to disseminate the simplest of information. This can be done daily or
weekly
Radio and Agriculture: Radio is a the best medium for agricultural extension. Various
agricultural institutions use radio to disseminate information on crop, methods of harvest and
other technical information. In a country which largely depends on agriculture and where
mechanisation is still in its early stages this would help enhancing food security of the
country.
Community Radio: a bridge between the country and vulnerable section of the society:
Community Radio is the best example of how radio can play an important part in social
emancipation. The concept of community radio is to work for the weaker sections of a
society. This helps in drawing the nation’s attention to people who have been neglected. This
license id only provided to educational institutions or NGOs with proven track record of 3
years
Disadvantages of Radio:
1. Lack of Visualization: Radio is a blind medium that offers only audio communication.
2. Lack of attention: Because it is an easy-going medium of communication, people don’t
usually get or remain connected to it for a long time. While driving or cooking, if you are
listening to the radio, you don’t pay complete attention.
3. Health Hazards: Radio waves are harmful to the human brain. Too much exposure causes
headaches, nausea, and disorientation. Remaining 24/7 surrounded by radio waves operated
phone, Wi-Fi at the office and home, television remote is not good. It is noteworthy that
sometimes radio waves of two different gadgets interfere and cause damage, like in aircraft
and phone gadgets.
4. Signal issues: Because radio works based on receiving signals, sometimes you may find it
difficult to tune to a specific station. There will also be signal issues, resulting in noisy audio
Question 3:

Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation that allows the human eye to see or makes objects
visible. It has the following characteristics:
a. Light is made up of packets of energy. These are called photons.
b. It is relatively narrow in the band of electromagnetic waves - It ranges from400-700
nanometre between infrared and ultraviolet rays.
c. It travels at a speed of 3x108 m/s
d. It has particle and wave characters
e. It travels fastest in vacuum
In film-making the term lighting refers to how light has been used by the cinematographer
and director. At its most basic level, lighting allows filmmakers to capture an image in the
first place. Most filmmakers, however, want to do more than just create images we can see
clearly. Instead, they want to create scenes where the lighting itself adds mood and meaning.
Just as a musical score can make a scene seem happy or sad, different lighting styles can
change the tone of a scene. So let us say lighting is part science part artform.
The direction of light refers to the path where the light source comes from and where it
lands. For example, top light or backlighting.
Quality refers to the intensity of the light. For example, hard or soft light.
Source refers to the role of the lighting. For example, key light or fill light.
Colour refers to the colour of the lighting. For example, white light or warm lighting
Objectives of good lighting:
A light source impacts everything in photography/videography including the character,
separation, colours, textures, mood and the story of the image. Let us list the objectives of
lighting
a. To set the mood of the shot. Proper lighting can set the right mood and poor light can
have an opposite effect
 b. To highlight characters in the frame. Different lighting can be used to highlight
different moods of the character. A character can look lovely moody ugly according
to the different lighting used. -
c. To highlight area of importance: proper lighting can be used to guide the viewer to the
intended point of reference in a video. If not done properly the attention of the viewer
wavers and this is detrimental to its outcome
d. To use the right lighting for the right scene: there are different kinds of light like key
light fill light and back light. Each must be used correctly to get the best outcome
e. To make a bland shot colourful. For this it is sometimes not enough that we do with
natural and artificial lighting. We will also use colour palettes

SET 2
Question 1

1. “Mushrooming of news channels may lead to high competition and thereby reduce
the quality of the profession”
To critically analyse this statement, one must study the history of private news
channels in India.
a. Television broadcast in India was started on September 15th, 1959. It took
another 6 years to start India’s first news bulletin which was 1 hour long
b. As a public broadcaster door darshan always had a naturalised way of
reporting. Government kept a tight leash on broadcast
c. The world this week, a program aired by NDTV every Friday in 1988 bought
news outside the door darshan studio for the first time
d. 1989 NDTV for the first time showed a nation-wide public telecast of the
general elections. This set a new milestone for private TV journalism in India
e. In 1991 international broadcasting came to India through CNNs broadcast of
the Gulf War
This opened the doors for newer channels in the field of TV news.
As of today, India has 392 news channels in National international and
regional languages
Advantages of having many news channels:
1. Diluting Bias: News should never be unidirectional. Having more
channels helps in curating opinion which are diverse. This helps is
generating a healthy debate in a democracy
2. Bridge the language barrier: with more regional channels every person
in the country has access to news. The first private news channel in India
was aired in English. As of today, the pool of news channels is dominated
by regional channel
3. Healthy competition: a healthy competition to bring in news first is in
fact a great help to build a robust civic society. The government and the
administration are also wary of the fact that they are being watched
Disadvantages of too many channels:
a. Skewed business model: Media is both service and business. An increased number of
news channel clutters the space. This will impact the quality of news content and also
compromises in the editorial board
b. Lobbying: Media is called fourth estate for a reason. But today in the race to stay
abreast and many a times stay afloat media organisations start cosying up to political
parties in power and business organisation thereby deviating from their original aim
of being the people’s voice
c. Changing contours of journalistic ethics: Constant pressure to bring news affects
journalists physically and mentally. They are then egged on to push the line
demarcating ethics to its nadir. The weak privacy laws in India make things worser
d. Towering presence of social media: social media including YouTube, Facebook and
twitter have bought the media industry into a standstill. Suddenly Good news is about
likes shares and subscriptions. To garner the same news organisations resort to
tweaking, misrepresenting and even creating news. the shrillest of all voices get the
most likes.

Question 2

The Visual Language is a voluntary system that uses consistently defined shapes to
convey key elements in a workflow (participants, assets, tasks, and infrastructure),
allowing developers to illustrate, for example, how different tasks are assembled in a
workflow. The illustration can then layer in users who carry out those tasks or pivot to
the assets operated on in those tasks. The language can also help illustrate the
operation of scheduling systems that describe the participants in a production (users,
departments, vendors, or even automated processes), how the participants interact and
engage, and the allocation of infrastructure required for participants to complete their
tasks. The three key elements to the Visual Language are:

Definition and guide that defines how to represent key concepts and flows
Presentation layer that provides resources for implementers, including icons, shapes,
formats, and a visual style guide
Best practices and examples with example workflows, diagrams and components
that can be referenced and reused

Framing:
Framing refers to the idea that actors like strategic communicators, journalists select
some aspects of a particular issue and make them salient while other aspects are
ignored. Frames refer to a specific presentation of issues or events and therefore
construct reality in a meaningful but selective way. They do so by suggesting a
problem definition, causal interpretation, treatment recommendation, and/or moral
evaluation on a given issue, favouring a specific political leaning and course of action.
More specifically, strategic communicators suggest frames that compete for public
and media attention, and journalists adopt and alter these frames, which ultimately
affects audience members’ individual level frames. Framing as a concept thus
explains the power to construct and alter meaning. Media framing can simply be
described as the angle or perspective from which a news story is told. While news is
 often thought to be objective and value free this is rarely if ever the case. In fact,
most news stories are value laden in both their production and content. News is not an
exact representation of reality but rather a reconstruction from various angles of a
small section of reality. This is not to say journalists necessarily lie or consciously
distort the truth, but that journalists by covering stories, using sources from a
particular news angle are constructing reality through a selective process

Composition:
Composition refers to how the various elements within a screen appear in relation
with each other and within the frame itself. It decides how the story/photo is to be
perceived. This is achieved by deciding the position of the various elements, focus
using lighting props etc and using the camera/ camcorder in the requisite angle and
position. Composition is important to create a perfect frame and many perfect frames
gives us the desirable end results

Question 3.
Critical evaluation of two current affairs programmes
1. News Hour – Asianet News (the most popular Malayalam News channel)
Asianet News is the most watched channel in Kerala. It was started on September 30th, 1995,
by Sasikumar and Raji Menon. Rajiv Chandrashekhar (IT Minister GOI) is the owner of
Asianet News
News Hour is hosted at 8 pm Weekdays on Asianet news. The show is hosted mainly by Vinu
V John a senior journalist in the channel and at times by other junior journalists also. This is
the most popular news talk show in Kerala. Asianet editorial board has always maintained
neutrality when it comes to presenting political and social news in Kerala. Vinu personally is
a journalist who does not mince his words in criticising political parties or religious/social
organisations
The format of the show is discussion mode. The host selects the most popular topic of the day
for discussion. There are a minimum of 3 panellists. These panellists are the subject matter
experts. For political discussions you would have representatives of 3 political fronts active in
Kerala and a political observer. Mr S Jaishankar is the most popular face on this panel.
This show is a mirror to the govt and the subjects of the social topic. This show has been able
to maintain its integrity and editorial board its neutral stance despite the management being
helmed by a politician.
The intervention that the show could do during the nationwide hartal in 2022 is only one
among many instances where the government was told in no uncertain terms that people
cannot tolerate hooliganism. The 2011 -2016 Oommen Chandy Govt was bought to its knees
by Asianet discussions on Solar scam. The channels position on the infamous Quotation for
rape case involving one of the most powerful actors in the Malayalam film industry is another
example
Left Right and Centre – NDTV (the first private news channel in India)
NDTV opened the floodgates for private news channels in India. It was started in 1988 and
has recently experienced a hostile takeover by the Adani group
NDTV is the hallmark of measured old school journalism. It is also the institution which
build the careers of most top journalists in the country
Left Right and Centre is hosted by various journalists from time to time.MS Nidhi Razdan
hosts it currently.
It is a show which focuses on discussing the main news of the day. Unlike the News Hour,
discussion here is limited to 20 minutes after which other news are covered. The panellists
are again subject matter experts. While the discussion on air is always civil one cannot but
help notice the bias of most anchors in the channel. The show is overtly critical of the current
govt in power. The discussions are crisp concise and so engaging. Nidhi is a good journalist.
It is the most popular show on TV because it is one of the oldest.