The way the members belonging to a particular community, religion, or territory are portrayed on prime time television debates is believed to have consequences in creating certain levels of prejudice and stereotyping amongst the mass public. The visual nature of television and its heavy viewership make it a key source of information and impression the viewers should have of a particular community, political party, religion and also people from a particular territory.
However, most researches till date have focused on documenting the portrayals of various groups in television content, with only a few studies documenting the casual impact of television viewing. As far as the people you see in the front of the camera, the choices of news anchors and panelists on prime time debates blatantly show prejudices.
How ordinarily have you come across a Muslim who wants to overpower the Hindus, or for the matter of fact, sympathizes with ISIS? How often have you come across a Kashmiri who wants Kashmir to merge with Pakistan? When did you come across a Socialist who disapproves of Democracy? When did you last see Rahul Gandhi watching Chotta Bheem? As far as I presume, you would have never encountered such people in your daily life. But unconsciously somewhere at the back of your mind you constantly assume these to be true because you are constantly bombarded with such contentions under the aegis of the personally targeting quarrels on the prime time debate.
In the late 1980s, when television saw its golden age in India, the main newsreader was hardly an important element of broadcast. Back then his job was to read out the available information and it were the reporters who gathered all information. ‘Anchor’ started to replace the term ‘Newsreader’ in the last decade in India as this phenomena had already occurred in the western world in the 1970s and 80s and this is where journalism, from disseminating information, started switching to purely opinion building and creating prejudices.
Anchors started to be portrayed as faces of journalism and their growing prominence started influencing the economics and control structure within news organizations. One of the star anchors, Ravish Kumar is bold enough to admit that the shift from reporting to anchoring is hampering the news gathering ability and journalistic integrity of major media networks.
The recent Operation 136 by Cobrapost reveals how dozens of prominent media organizations including Times of India, Hindustan Times, Zee News, Network 18, Times Now, India TV and many more niche organizations were ready to push the Hindutva Agenda by undertaking a campaign that could not only tilt the electoral outcome in favour of a particular party but also it could have caused communal disharmony among the citizens.
Even if one persists the revelations by Cobrapost to be biased, he should know that he holds such an opinion because of the successful creation of prejudice by a few social media pages, Whatsapp forwards and a handful of news anchors. The creation of prejudice can be quite evidently seen when you switch between prime time shows of Arnab Goswami, Sudhir Chowdhary, Rajat Sharma, Faye D’souza, Rajdeep Sardesai and Ravish Kumar.
A loyal viewer of a particular channel wouldn’t be able to make out that the channel is setting up a prejudice in the viewer’s unconscious mind because not only does the anchor, but all the elements on the news screen contribute in building up that prejudice. The ticker on Times Now after the Karnataka election results read, “Janta Picks Modi, Cong Picks Jugaad”; while they successfully made the viewers forget about BJP forming government in Goa and Meghalaya with considerable amount of seats lesser than the single largest elected party in these states.
Also their hashtag “#BJPYuktCongMukt” paves way for BJP’s agenda of ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’. The hashtags used by the news channels also play a crucial role and unconscious role in opinion building. The classic example of this is when Zee News used the hashtag #AreYouSeriousRahul? Even if Rahul Gandhi would be making sense, you would see Rahul Gandhi in a negative light after seeing the hashtag #AreYouSeriousRahul?
So before Arnab Goswami tells you that all Muslims as terrorists make sure that you get to know the Muslim who travels with you and stays in your vicinity. Before you make your opinion of the Kashmiris’ urge to merge with Pakistan, make sure that you talk to a Kashmiri when you go for a vacation to Kashmir. If you still are willing to make your opinion on what that conservative Maulana said on the prime time, you need to be aware that the Maulana is a panelist on the prime time BECAUSE he is conservative and one Maulana doesn’t represent the whole community.