Use of Media in the Political Situation in India

Introduction

Media plays a vital role in a democracy in informing the public about political issues and acting as a watchdog against abuses of power. For politicians, it provides a platform to connect directly with people across the country at a reduced cost and wider reach, to spread their policies and agenda. During election campaigns, media provides information to voters about the policies, candidates and performances of any particular political party be it regionally or nationally. It helps shape public opinions and can even spark debates. One of the examples of politics used in media is the result of the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

     Politics and media are two different tyres in the vehicle of democracy. Without a proper balance between the two, democracy would just be a useless tool that has no effect. Therefore, without media, politics cannot be expected and without politics, media cannot be dreamt of as media and politics are equally essential to pass a decision or to revert it. Democracy in the present age cannot exist without a proper use of media.

History of the interplay between Media and Politics

     In India, the interplay between mass media and politics has had a long history. In 1878, the Hindu was founded and it played a vital role in promoting the cause of Indian independence form the yoke of the colonisers. Today it is one of the top-five leading newspapers in the country. Later as mass media evolved, twenty-four hour news channels emerged. This brought about private television news channels which changed the style of journalism in India. Doordarshan was the first channel of Indian origin to begin broadcasting news. However, this wasn’t a round-the-clock national news channel. Nevertheless this later evolved into a trans-national coverage in media. CNN brought international satellite television in India through the coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. By the dawn of the 21^st Century Zee News, Star News and Aaj Tak competed to be the top round-the-clock national news channel. This trend of twenty-four hour news coverage has continued ever since.

Democracy’s dependence on Media

     As mass media began to evolve, politics too became dependent on it. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States of America had once famously said that if he had to choose between a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, he would choose the latter. Such is the power of media, especially mass media, in the political situation of any country. Mass media serves as the backbone of democracy as it supplies political information that voters base their decisions on, identify problems in our society, and uncover errors and wrongdoings by those in power and authority and serves as a medium for deliberation. It makes the exercise of freedom of expression a reality, as it enables everyone to participate in free political debates which is at the core of the concept of a democratic society. Media itself is used by the political parties to propagate their various ideologies and goals. It has become so necessary to use media in the proliferation of political goals and ambitions that many parties, beginning with the BJP have even reserved a part of their budget towards the creation of IT cells that would expedite their media influence. Even TV broadcasting and news channels have been bought and initiated by various political parties to help endorse their image as a tech-savvy group of politicians.

Use of media in elections

     Media’s role in politics reaches its peak at the time of elections. It is an essential to the conduct of democratic elections. The prime concern for a free and fair election is the right of voters to full and accurate information about parties and candidates. Other concerns would be to report on election campaigns, provide a platform for the political parties, allowing parties to debate and securitize the electoral process itself in order to evaluate its fairness, efficiency and probity. India would not be able to describe itself as the world’s largest democracy in today’s world without the existence of an independent media. It is the duty of media to keep an eye on elections as a watchdog of democracy. The political speeches delivered by the candidates of various political parties describing their party’s manifestoes are also broadcasted to reach a wider and more diverse audience rather than just stick to the people attending the political rallies. And so, a person who may not have the time to attend mass political rallies can still be a part of it and understand the crux of it when listening to the political speeches that are broadcasted. Mass media in India often reflects the diversity and plurality of the country, especially when the general elections take place. In the eon of modernisation and globalisation the relationship between politics and media is inseparable and cannot be expected to disperse from one another.

Social Media in election campaigns

Social media plays a considerably new role in Indian democracy. One of the first mass uses of social media in India was in the May 2009 general elections when for the first time online voter registration and transparency campaigns started and political parties tried to reach voters by means of social media. In urban India, political parties are becoming tech savvy so as to reach the young voters. Among major political parties, the BJP has the biggest appeal on social media. The BJP began using social media just before the 2009 general election which they eventually lost. However, now its grip on social media influence has tightened. Several senior leaders like Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and, the late Arun Jaitley and the late Sushma Swaraj were also on social networking sites. Even at the 2014 general election, Narendra Modi had his own team for social media management.

Misuse and the Abuse of Media in Politics

Opaqueness of Media in Politics

We have already mentioned that one of the roles of media is to act as a watchdog over the political parties in the proper functioning of a democracy. It must make the political system more “transparent” by helping people to participate in political decisions and understanding the operation of the ruling government.  But, who is the watchdog of media? Media, too, can be manipulated for various reasons. Most of the time, the media plays different roles. It simulates transparency and doesn’t serve the political values that motivate the “transparency”, hides important information in a mass of manufactured political realities. Although, political transparency is impossible without mass media coverage, politicians and even governments tend to manipulate the coverage of information to achieve their political and economic goals through diverting audience attention. They use media to divert attention from the ‘ideologies at play’ to issues of lesser importance which are unnecessarily hyped up. And so, even the ruling party in a democracy can be “opaque” when they censor their own wrongdoings that mass media would want to present to the public. An example of this are the recent cases in Ayodhya and Kashmir.

Like we mentioned earlier, many parties beginning with the BJP have reserved part of their budget towards the creation of IT cells to be more tech-savvy. However, politicians reserve budgets of their own towards creating their own social media teams. Sources within the BJP say that while the official spending for these elections will be around a few crores the spending by prominent BJP leaders who have their own social media teams working for them runs into hundred crores and more. Even TV channels have been bought by political parties to cover up their own wrongdoings and present a good image to the people.  News channels like the Republic TV, Republic Bharat and Sudarshan are also owned by political parties so as to manipulate the way they are presented in front of the general public.

Another growing concern is the starting up of news channels and releases of movies just before elections to help patch up the faults done by the party during the years and in turn win the election for a second or even a third time.  A recent example of special TV broadcasting is the start of Modi TV that began just before the general elections this year. Another is of the movies ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’, ‘Narendra Modi: A New Biography’ and ‘Thackeray’ that tried to present a good image of the party and move the crowds towards favouring their parties.

Fake News and the Internet

Moreover, there is also the rise of fake news and rumours, especially on the internet. It is getting increasingly harder to distinguish genuine news from fake news on the web. Social media makes this refinement particularly befuddling. The consistent stream of images, connections and gossips about political leaders is a blend of truth and untruth. There are currently a significant number of fake news websites that frequently post stories that sound bona fide. Some fake news sites are not by any means entertaining yet basically exist to present misleading content stories or troll voters who do not do their very own examination. There are also additional sites with political predisposition or those selling different unverified news. It is difficult to be unaffected by falsehood posted by your friend, regardless of whether they do not mean to misdirect you. What is needed is wisdom and a critical reflection over what is presented before taking it for granted. There are quite some journalists who have had the courage to stand up to the injustice and the opaqueness done by the political parties through the misuse and abuse of media. However, they too have been silenced or hacked to death. Some of these include Barkha Dutt, who was removed as an anchor on NDTV and now writes in a guest column for The Week, Gauri Lankesh who was murdered in Bangalore among others.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we see that media and politics are two different streams of current converging to create a huge overflow of benefits, evils and interactions. Media is either used or misused in politics on a daily basis. The way media is utilized by the political parties and politicians can either aid the party in its political ambitions or can tarnish the image of the party or the party representative. With the ever increasing rise of fake news and the spread of rumours in the churning rumour mill – the Internet – we are called to be educated into the proper use of media, a critical view to what we receive via the Internet and a balanced judgement when viewing information in media especially when it comes to social media which has been growing in popularity over the past decade.