Media, undoubtedly, has been playing a significant role in upholding the democratic polity of India. It has become one of the vital players in fighting corruption through its sting operations and investigative journalism. Electronic media, in particular has been occupying the central position in exposing public scams, corruption and such other cases that have become integral part of India’s democracy. Thus, public forms its opinion based on the facts and evidences provided by the media. However, off-late electronic media has been manufacturing the public opinion instead of helping to form the same. This disturbing trend is noticed off-late particularly in so called ‘high profile’ cases.
Electronic media has given the option to their viewers to SMS their opinion in media-hyped high profile cases like Jessica Lal and Priyadarshini Mattoo. This in turn has empowered many viewers sitting in their drawing rooms to the extent of deciding the fate of these cases. At the same time, media (and the viewers) often grossly ignore that many Jessicas and Priyadarshinis are there in this country. In fact, such trends manifest biasness in reporting and hence, the question remains why media does not address those cases? Firstly, the Delhi-centric nature of these two cases brings media into close proximity with these cases; second, the market or viewers for the channels also comes from a similar background to that of Lal and Mattoo – middle class, urban, educated and working women.
Indeed, media has its own way of bringing such crimes into the viewers’ drawing room by using terms convenient to the viewers. In fact, not long ago Mr. Sushil Sharma allegedly killed his wife Naina Sahni and burnt her body in Tandoor. Subsequently the media named it as the ‘Tandoori-case’. This name became so infamously famous that it left certain distaste among those who love Tandoori items. On other hand, periodic Dalit killings, tribal killings, etc, are all sidelined and lost in the memory created by the media. In other words, the social memory of contemporary society is being altered greatly by the media and market factors. The urban-middle class that forms the major viewership of electronic media might feel empowered by watching ‘high profile’ crime cases on the television screen. Also, due to repeated screening of the crime committed, the viewer would naturally identify with the victims thus certain kind of opinion is generated among the viewers.
In another media’s high-profile case, Sanjeev Nanda, grandson of former Chief of Navy, has killed five people in the national capital, while driving his BMW car after drinking. Later the case took ugly turn when NDTV 24x7 in its sting operation exposed the special prosecutor I U Khan and senior advocate and defence lawyer of Sanjeev Nanda, R K Anand shown allegedly influencing Sunil Kulkarni, a key eye witness in the case. This, the media has conveniently termed it as ‘BMW-case’ by bringing in the name of the car’s brand that Sanjeev has used in the accident. The sensationalisation of news is done through giving each ‘high profile case’ a particular name that the viewer can immediately identify with. Now one wonders if the court itself has named the case as BMW, which is very unlikely.
Media systematically converted Sanjeev Nanda’s hit and run case into BMW-case, concealing the name of the accused person. Conversely, media branded the Tamarind Court case as Jessica Lal case. If one has to name the cases through their brands then there will be scores of hit and run cases in the country with names like ‘Maruti-800-case’, ‘Mahindra Jeep-case’, ‘Ambassador-case’, etc. This is only small evidence to the manner in which market and media have penetrated into the common peoples’ lives.
Moreover, the nexus between media and market raises doubts particularly in the context of BMW investing heavily in India. The German auto major BMW views India as a major market and is intended to invest more than Rs. 1000 crores shortly. As a part of its plans in India, BMW has unveiled its first assembly plant in Chennai. In the next five to ten years the company is likely to double its sales in the luxury car segment (Rs. 50 lakhs and above for each car). Given these expansion plans of BMW in the Indian market, the media’s usage of ‘BMW-case’ would have certainly helped the company in its sales campaign.
Similarly the recent unearthing of children body parts came to be termed as ‘Noida killings’. While the place Noida has nothing to do with the killings but for the fact that the killings happened within the geographical space of Noida. Otherwise, anybody would know how peaceful residential area that Noida is. To conclude media as a watchdog of democracy has to maintain certain principles in order to nurture and ensure culture of democracy.
U. A. Shimray & Patibandla Srikant
Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC)
Nagarbhavi, Bangalore – 560072
