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Is News Channels creating hype or providing useful information?
Is News Channels creating hype or providing useful information?
Mass media plays a crucial role in forming and reflecting public opinion, connecting the world to individuals and reproducing the self-image of society.
Media has a strong social and cultural impact upon society. This is predicated upon their ability to reach a wide audience with a strong and influential message.
Thanks to the ISRO’s contribution, Television became the part of the life of almost everyone in India. The liberalization policies of the Government at the Centre, paved the way for flooding of TV channels. News is spreading within no time of a happening, across the country and the world as well thanks to these channels.
When it comes to ethics, News channels shall bound to follow the principle of "limitation of harm." In the war of getting highest TRP ratings and to grab more eyeballs, news channels hardly follow these principles. In this run up, there is every possibility of crossing borderlines and air the news items without confirming the authenticity of the news item. This unconfirmed news items may fuel the sentiments and may lead to Law and order problems as was happened in Andhra Pradesh in the recent past, which lead to attacks on Reliance properties by a section of people, basing on a news item aired by some news channels.
The other notable example of such is live coverage of Mumbai attacks. Terrorist attacked Mumbai on 26th November, 2008 and the attacks lasted for more than 72 hrs., killing 173 and wounded more than 300 people. They took shelter in Hotel Taj, and its adjacent Oberoi Trident, and fought the armed forces from inside the Hotel Taj and media aired the live happenings. This might have given the live information to its audience, but surely this helped the fidayeens inside to receive directions from their bosses in Pakistan on how armed forces entering the hotel and how to successfully attack these armed forces by hiding themselves at safer places. News channels might have provided live information to all its audience, but at the cost of the security of the nation.
To sustain competition, every channel has to project a news item differently from other channels to get more audience and nobody contradicts it. But, adding spice to a news item in order to create hype may sometimes create commotion. Can we presume Channels don’t aware the consequences of it, but the malady is they don’t care the consequences.
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