The media must adopt self-regulatory measures and avoid negativity
There has been a huge uproar across the country and also in some parts of the world over a derogatory remark made by a politician about religion followed by the majority population living in India. Immediately after his speech, there were millions of reactions on various social media platforms, TV channels and so on. Such scenes or shots have now become a staple food dished out in the sitcoms and serials aired by most of the TV channels in India. Just imagine the state of the minds that feed upon this sordid fare day in and day out. Most of the TV channels through their crime-based shows plant seeds of crime in the tender impressionable minds of youth by showing them various kinds of criminal and sinful activities explicitly. It is therefore not surprising when we read about real-life incidents of minors offending the honour of elderly women or rich kids resorting to various acts of crimes. The torrent of such prurient and violent images and messages on television has sounded the death knell on the crumbling body of our social and moral heritage that was once the pride of our existence.
The simple family values, the fear of God and sin, and the codes of conduct that once demarcated the line between sin and morality have been swept away forcefully by the strong winds of glamour, consumerism, pleasure and modernity which have been aggressively glorified by shows on television. As a result of this, today we have a generation of humans who have been desensitized towards immorality and corruption. Their sense and sensibilities have been numbed by excessive indulgence in vulgar and violent sights and sounds.
One can hence imagine as to what would be the output of the minds bred on such fetid fodder. So, who is accountable for this decadence? Parents? Teachers? Or Media? Usually, the media sidetracks the issue of moral accountability by saying that they are simply catering to the demands of the public and hence the supply is made to fulfil the demands. They also wave the banners of progressiveness, modernity, mirroring reality, upholding the freedom of expression and so on. Every country has a code of punishment for those who incite others towards crime.
But how to punish someone for directly or subtly inciting millions of viewers to imbibe negative behaviour traits and criminal tendencies? One wonders how would the makers of such programmes react if their reel-life episodes were to happen in their real life too. Earlier, sin and crime were limited to certain locations, which were normally out of bounds for youngsters and ordinary folks, but television & internet have changed all that by bringing the whole world at our fingertips in the privacy of our homes as a result of which all the limits of morality have been blown away. The young and old, girls and boys, the rich and the poor all are performing an orgy of sin at the altar of sensual pleasure, endlessly driven by materialism.
There is big money at stake for producers, advertisers, promoters, actors and broadcasters of mega shows that glorify glamour, sex and crime in the garb of entertainment and thrill. Therefore, it is high time that the media should wake up to its role of being an agent of positive change rather than just mirroring and glossing over the negative side of life. Realising its magnitude of influence over the masses, the media must adopt self-regulatory measures to curb the increasing use of sex and violence as means of entertainment and direct its resources to renew a culture based on the noble spiritual and social values that once marked our glorious civilization, for it is the only hope for society that can bring the real transformation.
(The writer is a spiritual educator and a popular columnist; views are personal)