It’s Biased Media Vs. Biased Social Media in India ...

When I was in school, I had very limited resources like some newspapers; some weekly magazines and I could only watch few TV programs to find out about the world. They all had their inclination either towards left, right or center. I used to like some of them and not agree with some of them and  I still had to make choices about the papers, editors and authors from a very limited pool. Today we have abundance of information but the problem today is  that I don’t know which information is right or wrong, genuine or propaganda, advertisement or paid news, from a hater or lover. Nowadays, there are elements in the society of India which try to spread out the wrong information or sometime right information to incite people or information which is of no value to society for the sake of TRP, money, power, ideology, religion, region, cast or just the entertainment. This includes main stream media and social media.

Main stream media is a one of the important pillar of democracy. There has been a trend in social media to discredit the media for their so-called biased reporting which they do sometimes. An unbiased media reporting is must for a healthy democracy. 

But unfortunately the sections of Media in India have been involved in corrupt practices which has undermined the democratic processes and norms. These media houses generally take higher moral ground but do several kinds of immoral practices. People must have known about Radia tape which had phone conversation of prominent journalists where they had compromise their professional integrity. Zee news editors have seen involved in a sting where they demanded advertisement for covering up a story of an MP. There has been incident of paid news all over the country during elections.

There are issues with Main stream media and those are being scrutinized seriously nowadays by everybody. But the conduct of certain people, organization on social media is more worrisome. I hardly see any news on social media as truth and genuine unless I verify that with some good sources. A culture has been developed on social media to discredit the main stream media, politician except they favor one. Politician and parties are running campaign to establish their ideology through social media. There has been a tendency to go below the belt to people/ ideology that they don’t agree with.  Social media has become a tool of advertisement and a place where Mobocracy is trying to take place of Democracy. 

Sometimes I wonder why people are not bothering to verify the authenticity of the information which they are sharing and promoting. There has been lot of false information about the individuals, organization and events circulating in social media. For example,  I have seen people sharing Japan tsunami video saying this is what happened in Kedarnath.Social media is being used by spammers/campaigners of certain ideology  to spread the wrong information and people are being fooled and become the part of the chain to spread it further. Some people are sharing the information against some political group, people which are hardly true and no legitimate source of that misinformation.  Backwardness and superstitious is being spread by the social media, there has been increasing trend of sharing something related to religion/God and asking to share immediately otherwise pay the consequences. Social media is also being used to mobilize the people, start the communal tension and the riot whether it was London or Muzaffarnagar. 

There are  things which are really good in both the media. There are lots of good people working day and night to do the reporting as true Journalists in main stream media. People should give them little respect what they deserve. At the same time, Social media is just a tool and it is highly depend on the content what people are sharing. There are positives around the social media. The most important aspect is that it gives the opportunity to exercise the very fundamental right to express. The human aspects of it to able see the updates of your friends all over the world. It has been a symbol of woman liberalization in India which is an important aspect of it too. I got to see some important and good information around all sections of news, jokes cartoons and sarcasm. But when I need to filter out these information from some misinformation, then I realize that  its long way to go when  people will start using these tool positively and constructively !!