Corruption is a very sensitive issue to discuss. But today it has become necessary to raise our voice against corruption. Corruption is like cancer and is having adverse effects on our society.
We salute the doctors who are researching to find a treatment for such a deadly disease. But what about the disease that is causing the death of well-established civilised societies? People ignore the issue of corruption thinking that it is not affecting them or they are not involved in this matter, but the reality is that they are the ones who are helping spread this disease.
If something wrong happens to someone, people are either afraid, or they are ignorant towards the situation. They see the victims as the corrupt because they don’t want to accept what’s wrong with the society. We know corruption has reached every corner of the country. It has now acquired the media as well.
Media’s Freedom of Speech?
We all know the power and effectiveness of media. People trust any information that is shared by news channels or newspapers. Ideally, the media should be independent and should always share important news with their viewers/readers. Sadly, it is not happening the ideal way.
Those at higher positions have recognised the effectiveness of the media, so they use media as a medium to spread misinformation or to criticise the good work done by the oppositions.
They use media to their advantage. Most of the news channels are directly/indirectly owned by politicians, so just think, will they allow the media to speak against themselves? Even if a news channel is not owned by a politician but the news channel will work with them for money and growth of the channel.
The Indian media is one of the most corrupt in the world. The media has grown stronger in the last five years because they have realised the need of the viewers/readers, and found that viewers/readers are not concerned with the truth, they are only interested in masala news. So they prioritise the news accordingly, and viewers/readers think that they are getting all the important information.
Some of the news channels are so advanced that they keep on discussing useless topics unless the topic loses its value. They tend to use this technique to hide the information which they don’t want their viewers to know. They want to gain the full control of their viewers so that they can make their viewers do what they want by broadcasting misinformation or wrong information. They use the psychological process of ‘anchoring’ to influence the viewer on a particular matter like the ‘Ram mandir’.
Example of Anchoring Psychology
Six months ago, we saw protests against a movie that had little to no effect on anyone’s life. The media was busy covering the news on that useless movie.
People who knew nothing about that movie were also very aggressive and reactive. They were not worried about the effect of their actions on the lives of innocent citizens. The people who were aggressive were brainwashed. They were made to believe in the rumour that the movie disrespected their culture by disrespecting their queen.
Some politicians were busy taking advantage of this situation instead of controlling the situation. The media kept playing the same piece of news again, and again so that the reactions to it won’t diminish. News channels were busy in boosting their TRPs and sharing incorrect information with their viewers.
The whole thing was fake and was created to hide a very important movement – the farmer’s march for their rights. The movement lasted for at least 15 days. The nuisance that happened because of the movie was to overshadow the movement of the armers.
News channels have to keep getting new information for their viewers, so sometimes they tend to create fake news which is useless, but they present it in such a way to make the viewers believe that whatever they say is important and that we must believe it. They show animated versions of incidents, and we tend to believe that it might have really happened that way.
Have you ever noticed, why is there a difference in opinion on different news channels regarding the same incident? They provide us with the evaluation, the answers and reduce the need for us to make an effort to evaluate the situation. We accept the result without knowing if it’s the truth. By doing this, they destroy our capability to understand any situation. As a result, we lack in making good decisions. During the elections, these things become more active. I request the readers not to believe the news blindly and to actively evaluate what’s been shown in the name of news.