Thinking about Media
Need I tell what media? There are a number of them that keep us busy: Internet; television; newspaper .....I start my day, most often by reading newspapers, not one but two. Today morning, when I browsed through my English newspaper, i found this article rather interesting, it is entitled Media Savvy, and written by an author I very often like to read Jug Suraiya. I think it deserves a quote:
“Individual components of the media — a particular TV channel, or news-paper — can indeed try and 'manufacture' news, by promoting an individual or an event. But unless they are in resonance with the pulse of the people, such media 'creations' will at best be nine-day wonders, if that.”
I think, he forgot to mention Internet and social networking websites like FaceBook and now La Revista. It is the medium that keeps me busy most of the time. It informs me, and allows me access not only to information, other than news, but also permits me disseminate my opinions through articles like this, which are not just comments. Something I cannot do with other media, because they have to serve their own interests, corporate interests that do not overlap with my humble interests. What interests?
I am thinking of them now!
The name that props up to my mind is Noam Chomsky, he wrote a book entitled Manufacturing Consent many years ago, I read it while I was a graduate student. In it he said:
“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
I think, he had indeed said it what I would like to say. The interest of the powerful (whether media or political class) is to perpetuate their powerful position. I do not fall in that class. I am as T.S. Eliot said in his poem “ The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
…..... Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I belong to a minority that thinks independently and would like to propagate that habit among its friends. But, I also think, we get what we are accustomed and hence comfortable with. Who wants to feel uncomfortable, even for a short while??? I think, the answer is “No one!!” And there lies the secret of the power of the very powerful.
Rakesh Mohan Hallen